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ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

ing, and others tall and fastigiate ; some bear only male blossoms, andothers only female ones. The foliage, in some, is of a very light hue; inothers, it is glaucous ; and in some a very dark green. The fruit, also, variesconsiderably in size; but, perhaps, the most striking variety is one in whichthe branches are decidedly pendent. Miller mentions a variety which hasleaves like a cypress.

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Description, S,c. The red cedar, in its native country, is a tree from40 ft. to 45 ft. high, with a trunk from 1 ft. to 1 ft. 6 in. in diameter. Itsbranches, which are numerous and close, spring near the earth, and spreadhorizontally; and the lower limbs are, during many years, as long as thebody of the tree. The trunk decreases so rapidly, in diameter as itascends, that the largest specimens rarely afford timber for ship-buildingmore than 11 ft. in length. The diameter of the wood is also very much di-minished by deep oblong furrows in every part of the trunk, occasioned by thelarge branches persisting after they are dead. ( Michx .) The wood is fragrant,compact, fine-grained, and light; though heavier and stronger than that ofeither the white cedar or the deciduous cypress. The bark is thin and scalingoff. The leaves are fastened at the base by their inner side, in the new shoots,imbricated in four rows, giving them the appearance of being quadrangular;the year following these spread from the branch at an acute angle, and appearto be disposed in six rows, or longitudinal phalanxes. The male and femaleflowers are small, not conspicuous, and borne separately on the same or ondifferent trees. The berry is dark blue,' and covered with a whitish resinousmeal. The rate of growth, in the climate of London, is 10 ft. or 12 ft. in tenyears; and the duration of the tree is upwards of a century. The largestspecimens that we have seen are at Whitton, where there is one 60 ft. high,with a trunk 2 ft. in diameter; at Pain’s Hill, where there is one 40 ft.high, with a trunk 2 ft. in diameter, and the diameter of the head 40 ft.; andat Syon, where there is the tree figured in our last Volume.

Geography and History. According to the elder Michaux, Cedar Island, inLake Champlain, nearly opposite to Burlington, in lat. 44° 25', is the mostnorthern boundary of the red cedar. Eastward, it is found near Wiscasset, a