Eastern white-cedar

Leaves

Form

• Scale-like leaves with conspicuous resin glands

Length

• Lance-shaped leaves 4–5 mm
• Scale-like leaves 1–2 mm

Colour

• Dull yellowish-green, turning bronze in winter

Twigs

Form

• Leaf-covered shoots flattened
• Shoot complex broadly fan-shaped, usually horizontal and stiff

Colour

• Yellowish-green on both sides

Seed cones (mature)

Form

• Ovoid, upright, on a short, curved stalk

Length

• 7–12 mm

Structure

• Scales leathery, 5 or 6 pairs

Timing

• Seeds dispersed in late summer; cones shed over a period of months

Bark

Form

• Thin, with age separating into long, narrow, flat strips

Colour

• Shiny reddish-brown when young, with age becoming grey

Wood

Texture

• Very light, soft, weak
• Characteristic odour
• Easily split
• Heartwood resistant to decay
• Sapwood less resistant to decay

Colour

• Heartwood light brown
• Sapwood nearly white

Size

Height

• To 15 m, occasionally 25 m

Diameter

• To 30 cm, occasionally 90 cm

Maximum age

• Several hundred years

Tree form

Open-grown

Trunk

• Irregular in cross section
• Tapering rapidly
• Often leaning, then curving upward

Crown

• Long, narrow, dense, conical, almost columnar
• Neat and trimmed in appearance
• Branches bending slightly downward, gradually turning upward toward tips

Forest-grown

Trunk

• Visible through the crown

Crown

• Open, irregular
• Stubs of dead branches on lower part

Root system

• Shallow, wide-spreading

Habitat

Site

• Swampy areas where underlying rock is limestone
• Also on very shallow dry soils over flat limestone rock, and in sphagnum bogs

Associated species

• Grows in small pure stands; more often mixed with other species such as eastern white pine, yellow birch, eastern hemlock, silver maple, black ash, and white elm