THE CEDARS, WHITE AND RED
Beside the needle-leaved evergreens just described, there are some trees we all know, that bear cones, and are evergreens, but their leaves are strangely different from those of pines, spruces, firs, and hemlocks. One of these is the familiar arbor vitæ, a conical tree, with flat leaf spray. Looking closely, one can make out the tiny, scale-like leaves, arranged in opposite pairs, clasping the wiry stems, and covering them completely. These stems are flat, so that one pair of leaves has a sharp keel on the middle. The next pair is spread out flat. The keeled pair covers the edge of the stem. The flat pair covers the broader surface. These pairs alternate through the length of the stem, and an aromatic resin seals them close.
The cones of the arbor vitæ are small, and they have few scales, compared with the cones of the needle-leaved evergreens. Each year a crop is borne, with two seeds under each scale. Few of us see the little red cone flowers in May, nor the pellets of yellow on other twigs, which are the pollen flowers. We watch the hedge clipper at work, trimming the thick green fronds that make a solid wall of green. Look carefully hereafter for the flowers and the ripe cones, in the proper season for each.
This big tree, “The Grizzly Giant,” is over three hundred feet high. It is a sequoia, one of the cone-bearing evergreens
SCALY-LEAVED EVERGREENS
Upper: two branches from the same red cedar tree
Lower: flat sprays of arbor vitæ
The white cedar grows, a fine, conical evergreen tree, in the coast states, from Maine to Mississippi. It loves best the deep swamps, but grows well in wet, sandy soil farther inland. Here we see again the flat spray of minute, pointed, and keeled leaves, but the cones are different. These are pale grey, and globular; the few scales are thick and horny, and curiously sculptured, each with a beak projecting from the centre.
The foliage mass is a peculiar blue-green, and the bark, thin, and rusty red, parts into strings and shreds.
Lumbermen call this tree a cedar. So they do the arbor vitæ. The wood of each is pale-coloured, and notable for its durability when exposed to weather and water. Fence posts of white cedar, and cedar pails, shingles, and the like, have a great reputation for durability.