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In California and Oregon this tree is known as white cedar, cedar, and incense cedar; in Nevada and California it is called post cedar and juniper, and in other localities it is red cedar and California post cedar. It is a species of such strong characteristics that it is not likely to be confused with any other. Though different names may be applied to it, the identity of the tree is always clear.

Its range extends north and south nearly 1,000 miles, from Oregon to Lower California. It is a mountain species, and it faces the Pacific ocean in most of its range. In the North it occupies the western slope of the Cascade mountains in southern Oregon and northern California; and it grows on the western slope of the Sierras for five hundred miles, at altitudes of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet, where it is mixed with sugar pine, western yellow pine, white fir, and sequoias.

It is a fine, shapely tree, except that the butt is much enlarged. It has the characteristic form of a deep swamp tree, but it has nothing to do with swamps. Its best development is on the Sierra Nevada mountains, where swamps are few, and the incense cedar avoids them. It occupies dry ridges and slopes, but not sterile ones. It must have as good soil as the sugar pine demands. Its height when mature ranges from seventy-five to 125 feet, diameter four feet from the ground, from three to six feet, but some trees are larger. It is not a rapid grower, but it maintains its vigor a long time. As an average, it increases its diameter an inch in from seven to ten years.

The wood is dense. It contains no pores large enough to be seen with an ordinary reading glass. The medullary rays are so small as to be generally invisible to the naked eye, but when magnified they are shown to be thin and numerous. The summerwood forms about one-fourth of the annual ring. The wood is nearly as light as white pine, is moderately strong, is brittle, straight grained, the heartwood is reddish, the thick sapwood nearly white. It is an easy wood to work, and in contact with the soil it is very durable.

The incense cedar is the only representative of its genus in the United States. It has many relatives in the pine family, but no near ones. Its kin are natives of Formosa, China, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Patagonia.

The name incense cedar refers to the odor of the wood rather than of the leaves. Those who work with freshly cut wood are liable to attacks of headache, due to the odor; but some men are not affected by it.

The forest grown tree is of beautiful proportions. Unless much crowded for room, it is a tall, graceful cone, the branches drooping slightly, and forming thick masses. In the Sierra Nevada mountains, within the range of this cedar, the winter snows are very heavy. It is not unusual for two or three feet of very wet snow to fall in a single day. The incense cedar’s drooping branches shed the snow like a tent roof, and a limb broken or seriously deformed by weight of snow is seldom seen. Deer and other wild animals, when surprised by a heavy fall of snow, seek the shelter of an incense cedar, if one can be found, and there lie in security until the storm passes.

It is a tree which does fairly well in cultivation, and several varieties have been developed. It lives through the cold of a New England winter. Its cones are about three-fourths inch in length, and ripen in the autumn.

Incense cedar has filled an important place in the development of the great central valley of California, where it has supplied more fence posts than any other tree. Posts of redwood have been its chief competitor, but generally the region has been divided, and each tree has supplied its part. The redwood’s field has been the coast, the cedar’s the inland valley within reach of the Sierras. It has been nothing unusual for ranchmen to haul cedar posts on wagons forty or fifty miles.

The manufacture of posts from incense cedar has entailed an enormous waste of timber. The thick sapwood is not wanted, and in the process of converting a trunk into posts, the woodsman first splits off the sap and throws it away. In trunks of small and medium size, the sapwood may amount to more than the heartwood, and is a total loss.

The tree’s bark is thick and stringy, and it is generally wasted; but in some instances it is used as a surface dressing for mountain roads. It wears to pieces and becomes a pulpy mass, and it protects the surface of the road from excessive wear, and from washing in time of heavy rain.

Approximately one-half of the incense cedar trees, as they stand in the woods, are defective. A fungus (Dædalia vorax) attacks them in the heartwood and excavates pits throughout the length of the trunks. The galleries resemble the work of ants, and as ants often take possession of them and probably enlarge them, it is quite generally believed that the pits are due to ants. The excavations are frequently filled with dry, brown dust, sometimes packed very hard and tight. The cedar thus affected resembles “pecky cypress,” and it is believed that the same species of fungus, or a closely related species, is responsible for the injury to both cypress in the South and incense cedar on the Pacific coast. It is not generally regarded by users of cedar posts that the honey-combed condition of the wood lessens the service which the post will give, unless by weakening it and causing it to break, or by rendering it less able to hold the staples of wire fences, or nails of plank and picket fences.

Post makers often prefer fire-killed timber. If a tree is found with the sapwood consumed, as is not unusual, it is nearly always free from fungous attack. The reason it stands through the fire which burns the sapwood off, is that the heart is sound—if it were not sound, the whole tree would be consumed.

The wood of the incense cedar is serviceable for many purposes. The rejection of the sapwood by so many users is the most discouraging feature. The heart, when free from fungus, is a fine, attractive material that does not suffer in comparison with the other cedars, though it may not equal some of them for particular purposes. Tests show it fit for lead pencils, and recent purchases of large quantities have been made by pencil makers. Clothes chests and wardrobes are manufactured from this wood on the assumption that the odor will keep moths out of furs and other clothing stored within. It has been used for cigar boxes, but has not in all instances proven satisfactory. The odor of the wood is objected to by some smokers. Another objection and a somewhat peculiar one, has been filed against incense cedar as a cigar box material. It is claimed that the boxes are attacked voraciously by rats which gnaw the wood, to which they are doubtless attracted by the odor.

Sawmills turn out incense cedar lumber which is worked into frames for doors and windows, and doors are made of it, and also interior finish. Shipments of inch boards are sold in New York and Boston, and exports go to London, Paris, and Berlin.

The long period during which incense cedar has been used and wasted, has reduced the supply in most regions, but there is yet much in the forest. It is never lumbered separately, but only in connection with pine and fir; but post makers have always gone about picking trees of this species and passing by the associated species.

Alligator Juniper (Juniperus pachyphlœa) is so named from its bark which is patterned like the skin of an alligator. It is called oak-barked cedar in Arizona, mountain cedar in Texas, and checkered-barked juniper in other places. Its range lies in southwestern Texas, about Eagle pass and Limpia mountains, and westward on the desert ranges of New Mexico and Arizona, south of the Colorado plateau, and among the mountains of northern Arizona. Its range extends southward into Mexico. It is one of the largest of the junipers, but only when circumstances are wholly favorable. It is then sixty feet high, and four or five feet in diameter; but it is generally small and of poor form for lumber, because of its habit of separating into forks near the ground. It does best at elevations of from 4,000 to 6,000 feet in bottoms of canyons and ravines. The grayish green color of the foliage is due to the conspicuous white glands which dot the center of each leaf. The berries are small and blue, of sweetish taste which does not particularly appeal to the palate of civilized man, but the Indians of the region, whose normal state is one of semi-starvation, eat them with relish. The line separating heartwood from sap in alligator juniper is frequently irregular and vague, and like some of its kindred junipers of the West, patches of sap are sometimes buried deep in the heartwood, while streaks of heartwood occur in the sap. This heartwood is usually of a dirty color, suggesting red rocks and soil of the desert where it grows. Small articles which can be made of wood selected for its color are attractive. They may be highly polished, and the surface takes a satiny finish; but the wood does not show very well in panel or body work where wide pieces are used. The best utilization of alligator juniper appears to lie in small articles. It is fine for the lathe, and goblets, napkin rings, match safes, and handkerchief boxes are manufactured from the wood in Texas. Its rough uses are as fence posts and telephone poles. It is durable in contact with the soil.

California Juniper (Juniperus californica) is called white cedar, juniper, sweet-fruited juniper, and sweet-berried cedar. Its range is in California south of Sacramento, among the ranges of the coast mountains, and the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Its height runs from twenty to forty feet, diameter one to two. The leaves fall in the second or third year. This tree is of poor form and size for lumber. Trunks frequently divide into branches near the ground. The wood resembles that of other western junipers, and usually the fine color which distinguishes the red cedar of the East is wanting, and in its stead is a dull brown, tinged with red. The wood is soft and durable, and is strongly odorous. The sapwood is thin and is nearly white. Fuel and fence posts are the most important uses of the California juniper. Indians eat the berries raw or dry them and pound them to flour.