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Four Season Virtual Tree Trail

Station Seven - Eastern Redcedar Juniperus virginiana

 

“No stone-walled hilltop too bleak, no abandoned field too thin of soil but that the dark and resolute figure of the redcedar may take its stand there, enduring, with luck, perhaps three centuries.”  So begins Donald Culross Peattie’s chapter on the Eastern Redcedar in his classic, A Natural History of Trees.  Common in Tennessee, Eastern Redcedars range from Michigan south to Northern Alabama and Georgia.

 

 
Station Seven
   
 
  Eastern Redcedar Leaves

Habitat:  This is a pioneer species, and it tolerates virtually all soil conditions except those that are quite swampy.  Eastern Redcedars are often among the first new species colonizing a habitat.

Identification:  This conifer is unmistakable in all seasons.   The leaves are bluish green to yellow-brown, paired on a four-angled stem.

 

   
 
Eastern Redcedar Bark

 

The bark of the Eastern Redcedar is gray to reddish-brown, thin and scaly - compare it's bark to that of the Eastern Hophornbeam.  The bark of older Eastern Hophornbeams can look very similar to that of the Eastern Redcedar.

 

 

 

 

 

   
 
  Eastern Redcedar Cones

 

The berry-like fleshy cones appear in late summer and the fall, and are a light powder blue.

Other Uses and Lore:  For many people, the smell of a cedar tree conjures up memories of Christmas mornings.  The uses of cedar wood are many and varied.   The ease with which it could be worked and the wonderful textures in the wood made it a favorite material for fashioning furniture in colonial times. The wood’s resistance to pests continues to make it a favorite for cedar chests.

 The reddish color of the wood prompted the French of Canada to call this tree the “baton rouge”, or “red stick.”  When they found the same tree in Louisiana, they gave the name to the state capitol, Baton Rouge.

 Pencil makers formally used Eastern Redcedar in vast quantities to make pencils.  According to Peattie, In Tennessee alone, 3,000,000 feet of fine quality cedar was sent down the Cumberland River in 1900 in great timber rafts to satisfy the need for making pencils.  The Faber Company was said to use only Eastern Redcedar for its pencils.

 The value of Eastern Redcedar to wildlife is immense.  Cedar waxwings regularly eat the cones and take their name from this tree.  Many other songbirds eat the light blue fleshy cones, and the seeds of the eastern redcedar are often distributed along fencerows in bird droppings.  Many birds nest in Redcedars, and owls such as the Eastern Screech-Owl often roost in the dense foliage. The Eastern Redcedar is the host plant for the beautiful olive hairstreak, a butterfly.  Deer browse the leaves, and small mammals make use of the cover it provides.

 

 The Trail From Station Seven to Station Eight

 Fall Foliage

From Station Seven, the trail continues to descend.  There are many ashes, oaks and hickories in this short section and these trees add a nice touch of color to the woods.  This is a very good part of the trail to find the samaras of the Blue Ash, which is the next station tree.  There continue to be many limestone outcrops on the left side of the trail.

 

 

   
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