Northern White Cedar : Natural History

northern white tree

Shape of Thuja occidential (Whit-Cedar). Gilman, E. F., & Watson, D. G. (1994). 

Thuja occidentialis, which has a common name: Northern White Cedar. For the scientific name, thuja comes from Greek thuia, which means an aromatic wood; occidentialis means western, refers to western hemisphere, “the New World”. Although it is named cedar, but it doesn’t belong to pine family, instead, it is one of cypress family. It is slow-growing ever-green tree which found in lakeshore and forest of Northeast Minnesota and Ohio. Now, it has spread through zone 2 to zone 7, but it is center on northeastern North America. It is grown in humid climate and on not extremely dry or wet soil with various organic and minerals.