Tree of the day: Thuja occidentalis, Northern white cedar, Harris Garden
Thuja occidentalis is a species of evergreen needleleaf coniferous plants (in the Cupressaceae or Cypress family), native to north-eastern North Amerca.
Thuja occidentalis is a species of evergreen needleleaf coniferous plants (in the Cupressaceae or Cypress family), native to north-eastern North Amerca. A remarkable number of varieties of this species have been developed. It is usually a small tree in cultivation, and grows slowly, but in its native range it can reach about 25 metres and live for more than 1000 years. Thuja occidentalis is smaller than Thuja plicata (also present in Whiteknights Park), but their bark, leaves and cones are similar. Thuja occidentalis has red-brown bark with vertical fissures dividing it into peeling strips. Its leaves are small scales wrapped round flat branching arrays of thin stems, and its cones are small and egg-shaped, composed of scales, green when they first appear, and turning brown as they mature.
about this species
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This photo is one of 9407 photos of 877 trees in 334 species
This website is a virtual arboretum, created for interest, education and beauty. It exhibits some of the thousands of trees, of both native and exotic species, that grow in Whiteknights Park, the main campus of the University of Reading. Many of them have been planted since the university arrived in 1947, but some have been here since the 19th century or earlier, when Whiteknights was the gardens and parkland of large houses. More than a hundred of the trees are listed in The Tree Register, nine as British Isles champions (the largest or tallest of their species).
Please send any comments about this website to whiteknights-trees@reading.ac.uk.
The previous version of this website is here.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank: Rupert Taylor, Owen Johnson, Alastair Culham, Jonathan Mitchley, Jordan Bilsborrow, Marcus Wheeler, Benoît Vannière, Miguel Teixeira and Claire Hawkins for tree identifications; Brian Hunt and Trevor Smith for testing routes and contributing text; Dylan Parkes, Martin Watts, Emilija Rudzinskaite, Brian and Trevor for collaboration on the centenary project; Dan Hodson for useful code examples; Studio Lift for website style; Brian, Trevor and Nathanaël van Twillert for comments and suggestions on website user experience; Benoît, Marcus, Steve George, Mark Wrightham, Brian, Trevor, the Friends of the University of Reading, and other friends for their encouragement during the development of the website; the University and its grounds staff for maintaining Whiteknights Park.