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192 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
as any now in cultivation. Many of the varieties only show their distinctive
characteristics when young, and soon grow up into the normal form. Beissner
gives as many as forty varieties; but it is doubtful if all these are recognisable.
Those commonly met with in cultivation in this country are enumerated below:
1. Var. ericoides. 1
Retinospora dubia, Carriere, Conif. ed. 2, p. 141.
A form in which the seedling foliage is fixed and preserved. It is a dwarf,
compact, rounded, or somewhat pyramidal shrub, with slender branchlets, on which
the leaves, heath-like in appearance, are borne in distant decussate pairs. They
are spreading, linear, and soft in texture, becoming brown in winter. This shrub
resembles Cupressiis pisifera, var. squarrosa; but in the latter the leaves are much
whiter on both surfaces, and do not brown in winter. The latter also attains a
much larger size, and often becomes a large shrub or small tree.
2. Var. Ellwangeriana.
Retinospora Ellwangeriana, Carriere, Rev. Hort. 1 869, p. 349.
This is a transition form, in which both kinds of foliage, seedling and adult,
appear on the shrub, which may attain a considerable size. There is no regularity
in the distribution of the two kinds of leaves; but in shrubs at Kew of this variety
the juvenile foliage persists on branchlets in the interior shaded parts, the external
branchlets having adult foliage.
It was probably this form which M'Nab 2 mentions as having seen in 1866
in quantity in the nursery of Messrs. P. Lawson and Sons, who had received it
from Messrs. Ellwanger and Barry of America under the name of Tom-Thumb
Arbor Vitae. M'Nab states that the heath-like leaves have a slight smell of juniper,
while the other foliage has the odour of ordinary Thuya occidentalis.
3. Var. plicata, Masters, Gard. Chron. xxi. 258, fig. 86 (1897).
Thuya plicata, Parlatore, D.C. Prod. xvi. 457.
A tree differing from the type in the branch-systems tending to assume the
vertical plane, being curved so that the ultimate branchlets lie in different planes.
The foliage is conspicuously glandular, the lateral leaves being flattened, so that
they become almost like the median ones in appearance. According to Kent the
foliage shows a brownish tint.
This variety was long considered to be a distinct species ; but it is only a
seedling of Thuya occidentalis, with which it agrees in cones and in general character
of the leaves.
4. Var. Wareana, This only differs from the last in the colour of the foliage,
which is a deep green without any brown tinge. It was raised by Mr. Ware of
Coventry.8 According to Masters 4 it has larger leaves than var. plicata, and
corresponds very closely with native specimens of Thuya occidentalis gathered
at Niagara.
1 A plant of this variety growing into the mature form at Median's nursery, Germantown, U.S., showed that it was only
a juvenile state of Thuya occidentalis.—Garden and Forest, 1 893, p. 378.
2 Tram. Edin. Bot. Soc. ix. 61, fig. (1868).
3 Gordon, Pinetum, cd. 2, p. 409. * Gard. Chrou. xxi. 258 (1897).
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Thuya
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. 1
8. Var. Spathi. 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, vervceneana, etc.
Thuya occidentalis was probably the first American tree cultivated in Europe.
Belon 2 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. (A. H.)
DISTRIBUTION, ETC.
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.
1 Card. Chron. xiv. 213 (1880). 2 Belon, De Arboribus Coni/eris, p. 13 (1553).
2 C