Often cultivated, with many, often dwarf, forms produced in nurseries, as an ornamental tree and for hedges; and in Europe from the middle of the sixteenth century.
2. [Thuja plicata] D. Don. Red Cedar. Canoe Cedar.
Leaves on leading shoots ovate, long-pointed, often conspicuously glandular on the back, frequently ¼′ long, on lateral branchlets ovate, apiculate, without glands or obscurely glandular-pitted, usually not more than ⅛′ long, mostly persistent 2—5 years. Flowers about 1/12′ long, dark brown. Fruit ripening early in the autumn, clustered near the ends of the branches, much reflexed, ½′ long, with thin leathery scales, conspicuously marked near the apex by the free border of the flower-scale furnished with short stout erect or recurved dark mucros; seeds often 3 under each fertile scale, rather shorter than their usually slightly unequal wings about ¼′ long.
A tree, frequently 200° high, with a broad gradually tapering buttressed base sometimes 15° in diameter at the ground and in old age often separating toward the summit into 2 or 3 erect divisions, short horizontal branches, usually pendulous at the ends, forming a dense narrow pyramidal head, and slender much compressed branchlets often slightly zigzag, light bright yellow-green during their first year, then cinnamon-brown, and after the falling of the leaves, lustrous and dark reddish brown often tinged with purple, the lateral branchlets 5′—6′ long, light green and lustrous on the upper surface, somewhat paler on the lower surface, turning yellow and falling generally at the end of their second season. Bark bright cinnamon-red, ½′—¾′ thick, irregularly divided by narrow shallow fissures into broad ridges rounded on the back and broken on the surface into long narrow rather loose plate-like scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, coarse-grained, easily split, dull brown tinged with red; largely used in Washington and Oregon for the interior finish of buildings, doors, sashes, fences, shingles, and in cabinet-making and cooperage. From this tree the Indians of the northwest coast split the planks used in the construction of their lodges, carved the totems which decorate their villages, and hollowed out their great war canoes, and from the fibres of the inner bark made ropes, blankets, and thatch for their cabins.
Distribution. Singly and in small groves on low moist bottom-lands or near the banks of mountain streams, from the sea-level to elevations of 6000° in the interior, from Baranoff Island, Alaska, southward along the coast ranges of British Columbia, western Washington, and Oregon, where it is the most abundant and grows to its largest size, and through the California-coast region to Mendocino County, ranging eastward along many of the interior ranges of British Columbia, northern Washington, Idaho, and Montana to the western slope of the continental divide.
Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in the parks and gardens of western and central Europe where it has grown rapidly and vigorously, and occasionally in the middle and north Atlantic states.
11. CUPRESSUS L. Cypress.
Resinous trees, with bark often separating into long shred-like scales, fragrant durable usually light brown heartwood, pale yellow sapwood, stout erect branches often becoming horizontal in old age, slender 4-angled branchlets, and naked buds. Leaves scale-like, ovate, acute, acuminate, or bluntly pointed at apex, with slender spreading or appressed tips, thickened, rounded, and often glandular on the back, opposite in pairs, becoming brown and woody before falling; on vigorous leading shoots and young plants needle-shaped or linear-lanceolate and spreading. Flowers minute, monœcious, terminal, yellow, the two sexes on separate branchlets; the male oblong, of numerous decussate stamens, with short filaments enlarged into broadly ovate connectives bearing 2—6 globose pendulous anther-cells; female oblong or subglobose, composed of 6—10 thick decussate scales bearing in several rows at the base of the ovuliferous scale numerous erect bottle-shaped ovules. Fruit an erect nearly globose cone maturing in the second year, composed of the much thickened ovule-bearing scales of the flower, abruptly dilated, clavate and flattened at the apex, bearing the remnants of the flower-scales developed into a short central more or less thickened mucro or boss; long-persistent on the branch after the escape of the seeds. Seeds numerous, in several rows, erect, thick, and acutely angled or compressed, with thin lateral wings; seed-coat of 2 layers, the outer thin and membranaceous, the inner thicker and crustaceous; cotyledons 3 or 4, longer than the superior radicle.
Cupressus with ten or twelve species is confined to Pacific North America and Mexico in the New World and to southeastern Europe, southwestern Asia, the Himalayas, and China in the Old World. Of the exotic species Cupressus sempervirens L., of southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, and especially its pyramidal variety, are often planted for ornament in the south Atlantic and Pacific states.