Cedar

Eastern redcedar is the most widely distributed conifer of the East and grows in all states east of the Great Plains. Its range extends from southwestern Maine to southern Minnesota and the Dakotas, southward to western Nebraska and central Texas, and eastward to northern Florida and Georgia. Eastern redcedar has expanded into the Great Plains through the regeneration of planted trees. Its range was much more extensive during pre-Pleistocene and pre-Pliocene times. Relict stands in refugia from earlier climatic regimes persist in parts of western Kansas and the Texas Panhandle. Eastern redcedar is cultivated in Hawaii. Although said to "prefer" calcareous soils, it thrives on dry hillsides and in swampy land. Scientific Name: Juniperus virginiana Trade Name: Eastern redcedar Family Name: Coniferae Streaks of included lighter colored sapwood. The heartwood often contains many small knots, which are reported to impart a pleasant rustic look to furniture manufactured from Eastern red cedar, The narrow sapwood is nearly white or light cream in color. Eastern red cedar has a thin bark, which makes the tree rather vulnerable to fire. Trees growing in apple-orchards are usually removed because of the cedar-apple rust disease which tends to infect apple trees from the cedars. Large number of Eastern redcedar trees are reported to have been removed in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia because of this.