Thuja occidentalis
species of plant
Thuja occidentalis, also known as northern white-cedar, eastern white-cedar, or eastern arborvitae, is a coniferous tree in the cypress family, Cupressaceae, which is native to eastern Canada and much of the north-central and northeastern United States. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant. It is not to be confused with Juniperus virginiana (eastern red cedar).
Common names
Its additional common names include swamp cedar, American arborvitae, and eastern arborvitae. The name arborvitae is particularly used in the horticultural trade in the United States; it is Latin for 'tree of life' due to the supposed medicinal properties of the sap, bark, and twigs. It is sometimes called white-cedar (hyphenated) or whitecedar (one word) to distinguish it from Cedrus, the true cedars.
Description
Unlike the closely related western red cedar (Thuja plicata), northern white cedar is only a small or medium-sized tree, growing to a height of 15 m (49 ft) tall with a 0.9 m (3.0 ft) trunk diameter, exceptionally to 38 metres (125 ft) tall and 1.8 metres (5.9 ft) diameter. The tree is often stunted or prostrate in less favorable locations. The bark is red-brown, furrowed and peels in narrow, longitudinal strips.
Northern white cedar has fan-like branches and scaly leaves.
“Thuja occidentalis” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thuja, occidentalis and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thuja occidentalis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.