Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol01.djvu/221

 5. Var. dumosa. A dwarf shrub, with the foliage and branchlets of var. plicata.

6. Var. pendula. A shrub with pendulous branches and branchlets.

7. Var. erecta. Branches slender and erect. In var. erecta viridis the foliage is dark green and shining on the upper surface. It originated in Messrs, Paul's nurseries at Cheshunt.

8. Var. Späthi. A monstrous form, with seedling foliage on the younger branchlets, older branchlets being tetragonal, and clothed with sharp-pointed adult leaves.

9. Various forms occur with coloured foliage, as lutea, aurea, vervæneana, etc.

Thuya occidentalis was probably the first American tree cultivated in Europe. Belon describes it as occurring in a garden at Paris about the middle of the sixteenth century. It was introduced into England prior to 1597, as it is mentioned by Gerard in his Herball published in that year.

According to Sargent, Thuya occidentalis frequently forms nearly impenetrable forests on swampy ground, or occupies the rocky banks of streams from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, north-westward to Cedar Lake at the mouth of the Saskatchewan, and southward through the northern states to southern New Hampshire, central Massachusetts and New York, northern Pennsylvania, central Michigan, northern Illinois, and central Minnesota, and along the high Alleghany mountains to southern Virginia and north-eastern Tennessee; very common in the north, less abundant and of smaller size southward; on the southern Alleghany mountains only at high elevations.

Mr. James M. Macoun says of this tree in his excellent pamphlet. The Forest Wealth of Canada (Ottawa, 1904), that the white cedar, as it is there usually called—though in New England this name is always given to Cupressus thyoides—is very rare in Nova Scotia, but abundant throughout New Brunswick and Ontario. It grows to a considerable height, but seldom exceeds 2 feet in diameter. The wood is soft and not strong, and has never been much used for timber, but is unexcelled for shingles. It is chiefly used for fence rails and posts, railway ties, and telegraph posts. No other wood is used in any quantity for telegraph poles in Ontario and Quebec. It is very durable in contact with the soil or when exposed to the weather.

I saw the tree abundantly in wet swamps and also on dry ground near Ottawa, where, in Rockcliff Park, good though not large trees of it may be seen, the best having all been cut out for telegraph poles. On dry, rocky ground the tree grows freely from the stool, and in wet places in the woods reproduces abundantly from seed, which was ripe at the end of September, and, as usual in the forests of Canada, germinates and grows best when it falls on a rotten log. Rh