Thuja occidentalis - American Arborvitae Cedar Trees

Common Names: eastern white cedar, American arborvitae
Family: Cupressaceae (cypress Family)

American arborvitae
A row of stately and low maintenance American arborvitae decorates a parking lot.
Description
The wild eastern white cedar is a symmetrical evergreen conifer that usually gets 40-60 ft (12.2-18.3 m) tall. It is narrowly cone-shaped with a tight, compact crown. The trunk is sometimes buttressed at the base, and the thin, reddish brown bark is cut with furrows and shreds in thin strips. Branches start near the ground in open-grown trees; those in a forest setting may be devoid of branches for the lower third of their height. The branches are short and horizontal and the branchlets are flattened and held in fanlike horizontal planes. The leaves are like scales, closely attached to the compressed branchlets. Foliage is pleasantly fragrant, dull yellowish green, turning bronze in winter. Cones are small, about 0.5 in (1.3 cm)long, egg-shaped and green at first, turning reddish brown when mature in autumn. Eastern white cedar (a.k.a. American arborvitae) is similar to oriental arborvitae (Platycladus orientalis), but the latter tends to have more than one stem, and holds its sprays of foliage in vertical rather than horizontal planes.

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