Cedar Trees

Q. I live in North Georgia and we have this huge tree. I believe its some kind of cedar tree. It is real tall and has spiky needles and the cones on it are small and look like roses in full blown. Do you have any idea what kind it is? My grandmother planted it when they built this house about 70 years ago.

A. There are so many Cedars and trees which resemble Cedars that it would be impossible for me to ID a tree from a brief description. The best method for you would be to look at the sites below and check out the posters. Your eye could catch the one which is yours.

Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata).
Plicata comes from a Greek word which means folded in plaits. We think the tree is named that because of the way the needles (leaves) grow. The fruit is its seed cones. The red cedar has egg shaped small seed cones about 1 cm long. The cone has several pairs of scales. It is frequently spine-tipped.

Weeping Nootka False Cypress (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Pendula'). This species is also known as Nootka cypress yellow cedar Alaska cedar etc. It could also be a weeping Lawson false cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Intertexta'). The former is a very common landscape plant and is somewhat variable with respect to branch density and severity of weeping. Nootka false cypress (weeping or non-weeping forms) are easily recognized by their rounded cones (8 - 12 mm in diameter) but more so by the pungent smell of the foliage. Each of the Nootka's 4 to 6 cone scales has a soft prickle. The Lawson has a smaller cone (5 - 7 mm in diameter) with small bumps instead of obvious prickles on its cone scales.

Eastern White Cedar: Thuja occidentalis
Cones: 3/8" (10 mm) long; elliptical; light brown; upright from short curved stalk; with 8-10 paired leathery blunt-pointed cone-scales 4 usually bearing 2 tiny narrow-winged seeds each.