Gymnosperms

Scientific Name: Thuja plicata

Common Name/s:  western or Pacific redcedar, shinglewood

Description:

Trees to 50(-70) m tall and 200(-600) cm dbh, often buttressed at base, with a conical to irregular crown; old specimens frequently have many leaders and many dead spike tops. Bark red-brown or (particularly when exposed to sunlight) gray-brown, 10-25 mm thick, fibrous with shallow longitudinal fissures, easily peeled.

Sun to partial shade. Prefers moist, well-drained, fertile soils, pH adaptable. In the wild found in moist flats, slopes, and banks of rivers.  Can be maintained in a hedge.

Hardy to USDA Zone 5 Native range from Alaska to northern California, east to Montana.

Sun foliage differs in that sprays are more flexible and less planar, with smallest shoots upturned and nearly round.

 Seed cones are borne in the medial region of lateral spray branchlets, ellipsoid, composed of 4 pairs of scales (2-3 fertile pairs) arranged in 4 ranks, 10-12 mm long and about half as wide when dry and fully opened, each with a nearly terminal deltate projection. Seeds 8-14 per cone, 4-7.5 mm (including wings), reddish brown.

Pollen cones 1-3 mm, borne in a cup formed by two leaf pairs at the tips of lateral spray branchlets. Pollen cones are most abundant on sun foliage.

Habit: Conical to wide conical, formal, single leader, dense and full to the ground, buttressed trunk, slightly pendulous tertiary branches

Habitat: S.W. Alaska – Vancouver, B.C. - California

Phenology: Humid