The Joyful Botanist: A cedar by any other name
The red-cedar is not quite a cedar, it turns out. Adam Bigelow photo
When is a cedar not really a cedar? Well, in the case of the evergreen tree that most people know as eastern red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana), that answer is always. This cedar is not truly a cedar. Its common, or folk name is red-cedar, which I’ve also seen written as red cedar. And often people will shorten that to cedar and would assume that it is truly a cedar.
True cedars are in the genus Cedrus, and as far as I could discern, there aren’t any members of that genus that are native to the continental United States. The eastern red-cedar is certainly native and can be found growing in every state east of the Rockies. It is in the genus Juniperus, which makes the eastern red-cedar really a juniper. Maybe we could call it eastern juniper to help avoid confusion, and you could. It’s a common name, and there are no rules surrounding their use. But nobody would really understand what plant you’re talking about. And isn’t that the point of names in the first place, to know what and who we are talking about?
When I write eastern red-cedar and use the dash instead of making it all one word, I am trying to denote that it is not really a cedar. This is done with many common names that were misnomers. Mountain-ash (Sorbus americana) isn’t really an ash (Fraxinus spp.), and trout-lily (Erythronium spp.) is not in the Lilium genus, so it’s not truly a lily. And the eastern red-cedar isn’t truly a cedar.
It is one of two species of juniper that grow naturally in the mountains, and is the more common of the two, even as the other species is called common juniper (Juniperus communis). Common juniper is what is known as a circum-boreal plant and can be found growing across the northern part of North America from Maine, across Canada and all over the western United States and has many different varieties occurring in this range.
The juniper that you will mostly see, eastern red-cedar (see, isn’t that confusing?) is usually a small to medium sized tree that lives in old fields and along the edges of forests and woodlots. They can get as tall as 50 feet and take on a wide spreading growth habit when they are really old and large. Most red-cedars take on a compact, conical shape like a Christmas tree.
The leaves of eastern red-cedar are needle-like when young and develop overlapping scales with a distinctive cross-hatching pattern when mature. They also tend to splay out in multiple branching. The bark of mature red-cedar is a distinctive reddish brown that flakes off and looks shredded. This plant disperses its seeds in small cones that resemble berries. They are green when immature and ripen to a bluish-black.
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If you see a tree laden with these fruits, you are looking at a female tree as the eastern red-cedar is a dioecious plant, meaning there a separate plants for pollen production (male) and for seed development (female), so if you are planting them in a landscape, you’ll want to make sure you have both sexes represented.
When you do find a fruiting female tree, if you squeeze open one of the berries and smell it, you will get the pleasant and bright aroma of gin. Juniper berries are one of the main aromatic flavors of gin, and when you look into the etymology of the word juniper, it turns out to be the same roots as the word gin.
So, as we turn the calendar to 2025, I’d like to propose a toast to native plants and the beautifully diverse ecosystem we share here in the Southern Appalachian Bioregion. Here’s to the trees, shrubs, vines, and wildflowers. And here’s to you, dear reader, for sharing in my love of native plants, and in my journey to share that love with you. Cheers!
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
