What is a true cedar?

May 20, 2019 by Fred Allebach

Most trees with common name of cedar, or that are referred to as cedars, are actually members of the cypress family, Cupressaceae, including among others redwood, sequoia, incense cedar, cypress, juniper, arborvitae, Fitzroya, and cryptomeria.

True cedars are in the pine family, from the Genus Cedrus. Local examples of true cedars include the Atlas cedar: far east side of Plaza just north of tourist bureau sidewalk, and deodar cedar: just north of the Atlas cedar.

To further muddy the cedar water, a mahogany, Cedrela odorata is called cigar box cedar; the tamarisk is called saltcedar and Torreya taxifolia, in the yew family is called stinking cedar. Areas of cypress and juniper badlands are called cedar breaks or cedar roughs.

For the amateur naturalist, there’s plenty of room for cedar confusion. That’s OK because the root meaning of amateur comes from the Latin amare, and through the Spanish amar, to love. Amateurs love what they do and figuring this stuff out!

Cypress family trees commonly referred to as cedar include: Western redcedar, Eastern white-cedar, Port Orford cedar, Atlantic white-cedar, Alaska cedar, Incense cedar, Japanese cedar and Eastern redcedar. In order to tell these and other Cupressaceae apart you have to know the characteristics of the following cypress family genera: Thuja, Chamaecyparis, Cupressus, Calocedrus, Cryptomeria and Juniperus. It takes time and effort to learn these differences and since these trees have many similarities it’s easy to just call them all cedars and leave it at that. Keep in mind there is no formal classification of simply “cedars” in the cypress family.

My favorite is Sierra juniper, seen above.

Thuja or Northern white-cedar has over 300 cultivars and is planted locally, mostly as a yard hedge or street tree. These small trees have a yellow tinge to the foliage. Calocedrus or Incense cedar appears similar to sequoia but with flat, broad needle sprays. Just west of Newcomb on the Fryer Creek trail there’s a nice big Incense cedar. There are many local Cupressus, particularly Italian and Monterey cypress. See Watmaugh Road west of Broadway for a nice row of Monterey cypress.  The tall, skinny ones are the Italian cypress stricta variety ubiquitous in Mediterranean landscape paintings. Italian cypress is also known as “graveyard cypress”, see the myth of Cyparissus. Hollywood juniper, a Chinese juniper cultivar, is fairly common in town, see a nice planting in front of the development on Blue Wing Drive, north side. Chamaecyparis lawsoniana or Port Orford cedar has many cultivars and is sold as a live Christmas tree at Sonoma Market. Cryptomeria or Japanese cedar is a rare exotic in Sonoma.  Cross a Monterey cypress with an Alaska cedar and you get Leyland cypress, an extremely fast growing hybrid great for hedges and visual privacy. None of the above are native to the North Bay. The urban landscape has many introduced trees.

Cedar then, is a catch-all term for many different cypress family trees. Cupressaceae as a whole has a fundamental similarities in shape and branching pattern (bauplan), these are: vertical stringy bark texture, wood with a pleasant odor and many times, a flattened, segmented needle profile. When you hear the word cedar you are in all likelihood dealing with certain cypress family trees. A cedar chest is made from cypress family trees, not from Cedrus. Cedar could refer to any number of typical Cupressacae or cypress family genera: juniper, cypress, arborvitae (Thuja), Port Orford cedar (Chamaecyparis) or Incense cedar (Calocedrus). Incense cedar is the wood from which pencils are made.

A few final points of interest. One, cypress family trees are very tough and drought resistant. Junipers evolved in central Mexico, and have retained drought resistant characteristics such as vascular resistance to cavitation, or fatal air bubble pockets in the xylem. Some cypress species are specialized to live on serpentine soils, staking out ground where few others can survive.

Two, with anthropogenic global warming impacting finely tuned tree adaptations, and with western states’ fire suppression and rangeland overgrazing, Western juniper and Utah juniper are displacing the pinyon pine in pinyon-juniper ecosystems.

Three, the diversity of California ecosystems has provided the final refugia for many cypress family trees such as redwood, sequoia, Monterey cypress, and many small cypress-proper species such as Tecate, Macnab, Gowen, and Piute cypress.

Four, some of the oldest tree in the world are in the cypress family: juniper, Fitzroya (a South American tree similar to redwood), redwood, and sequoia.

Finally, again, true cedars or Cedrus, are pines, and are not native to North America. All the cedar lingo opened up here traces back to cypress family trees.