THE ARBOR VITAES - Genus THUYA, Linn. Evergreen resinous ornamental trees of slender, pyramidal habit, with intricately branched limbs, and flat, open spray. Leaves scale-like, 4-ranked, minute, closely appressed to twigs. Flowers solitary, terminal, small aments, moncecious, scaly. Fruits erect, loose, ovoid cones, of few thin scales; seeds few, usually two. Uses: trees especially adapted for formal gardens, clipped hedges and shelter belts. Wood variously employed.
KeY TO SPECIES A. Cone with 4 fertile scales, as a rule; bark orange red.
(T. occidentalis) ARBOR VIT1E AA. Cone with 6 fertile scales, as a rule; bark cinnamon red.
(T. plicata) GIANT ARBOR VIT/E Four distinct species of Thuya are recognised. Two are native to Japan and China. The Chinese T. orientalis, one of the most popular decorative evergreens, is cultivated especially in Southern gardens. is offered in several varieties. T. Japonica is a hardy species of lusty growth with white spots on the dark green of its leaf linings. A Japanese genus, Thuyopis, with one species, is one of the handsomest of Oriental evergreens introduced into cultivation here. It is hardy to Massachusetts, but suffers from drought. Its flat, frond-like spray resembles arbor vita, from which the genus is distinguished by having 4 to 5 ovules under each scale of the cone.
Arbor Vitce (Thuya occidentalis, Linn.)—A conical, com pact, resinous evergreen, 25 to 65 feet high, with short, ascending branches and flat, frond-like spray. Bark light brown, thin, cracking into ridges with frayed-out, stringy edges; branches smooth, red, shining. Wood soft, brittle, coarse, durable in the soil, light brown, fragrant. Buds naked, very small. Leaves, both keeled and flat, 4-ranked, to fit the flat twig, scale-like, blunt, or pointed, glandular, aromatic. Flowers, May, moncecious on tips of side twigs, but separate; staminate, a globose cluster of stamens; pistillate, a red cone cf S to 12 scales with ovules on lower or central ones only. Fruit oval, pale brown, erect cone, annual, with 6 to 12 oblong scales. Preferred habitat, low, swampy ground near streams. Distribution, New Brunswick to Manitoba; Min nesota, Michigan and northern Illinois; south along Atlantic States into New Jersey, along Alleghanies to North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. Uses: Valuable ornamental and hedge tree. Wood used for telegraph poles, posts, railroad ties and shingles. Bark rich in tannin.
The flat leaf spray of the arbor vicai of the Northern States sets it apart from other evergreens, and its use in hedges makes it familiar to most people. Children as well as grown people gen erally know it. Unfortunately the name, white cedar, has become attached to this tree, confusing it with another genus, cyparis, in which this name reappears.
Through years of cultivation this arbor vitro has produced a great number of garden varieties. Their slow growth and com pact habit adapt them to use in formal gardens. They are hardy, they submit to severe pruning and late transplanting, and they are easily propagated from seed—these traits of character com mend them to nurserymen and planters. They are planted with profit for telegraph poles and posts, as the wood, though soft, is very durable in soil. As windbreaks they do good service, and have unique ornamental value when massed on stream borders or grouped on rocky slopes.
Giant Arbor Vit, or Red Cedar (Thuya plicata, D. Don.)—A pyramidal tree, I5o to zoo feet high, with a stout, often corrugated and buttressed trunk. Bark scaly in narrow strips, thin. Wood light, brittle, reddish brown, soft, coarse, durable. Leaves minute, close, blunt, scale-like, with pale mark ings, longer on leading shoots. Flowers dark brown, moncecious, very small. Fruit erect clustered cones, with 6 fertile scales, each bearing 2 to 3 winged seeds. Preferred habitat, rocky stream banks and rich bottomlands. Distribution, coast regions from Cape Mendocino in California north into Alaska; mountains east into Idaho and Montana. Uses: A handsome ornamental tree, grown in Europe and occasionally in the Middle and North Atlantic States. Wood used for interior finish of houses, sashes, doors, furniture and cooperage. Indians use it for totem poles, frame work of lodges and war canoes. Inner bark furnishes fibre for blankets, ropes and nets; sheets of it thatch their cabins.
Beside this giant of the Northwest, our Eastern arbor vita is a pygmy. Solitary, or in small groves, it climbs the mountains to a level more than a mile higher than the rich river bottoms at sea level, where the noblest specimens and the greatest number are assembled. The Indian cuts the biggest specimen he can find for the totem pole that he carves into his family tree. The war canoes are dugouts made of the enormous butts which often measure 15 feet in diameter. Inside of the cabins the great rough-hewn rafters and joist of these primitive dwellings are of this arbor vitro, whose soft wood the crude implements of the tribes can work with comparative ease. The walls that enclose the Indian's house, the blankets that keep him warm, and the ropes, indispensable in fishing, in the harnessing of his dog teams, and in various other enterprises—all come from the fibrous inner bark of this tree. Truly it is a "tree of life" to the Alaskan aborigines.
In cultivation, this species far exceeds the other native in beauty and rapidity of growth. It is coming into popularity in the United States.