Trees & Shrubs of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Northern White Cedar is not indigenous to the Garden area or to Hennepin County. Eloise Butler introduced the tree to the Woodland marsh on May 19, 1909 with trees provided by the Park Board Nursery and added 3 more in September 1917, same source. Martha Crone planted some on July 31, 1933 - plants obtained from near Duluth - and again on September 3, 1936 - plants obtained from Cedar Bog near Anoka, and others in 1950. The species has been in the Garden ever since. It has been planted over the years in a number of locations in the metro area primarily as a landscape ornamental.

Northern White Cedar is found in the NE quadrant of North America. In Canada from Manitoba eastward except Labrador and Newfoundland. In the U.S. from Minnesota and Iowa on the west, eastward to the coast and south as far as Tennessee and the Carolinas. It is considered threatened or endangered in 8 of the states. Some of the survival pressures on the tree come from deer which find the leaves very tasty. Within Minnesota its native range is the NE quadrant, south as far as Anoka and Washington counties and it is also known in Pope, Otter Tail, Winona and Houston counties. This is the only species of Thuja found in Minnesota. There is only one other species, T. plicata, which is the Western Redcedar, widely used for lumber where rot-resistance is needed.

Uses: There are over 120 named cultivars of this plant for use as ornamentals. They are widely planted in areas not originally native. White cedar wood is naturally decay resistant and is used in construction where exposure to moisture is expected such as fencing, decking, poles, etc. In a home landscape where deer are prevalent it may need winter protection from deer browsing.

Botanist Francois Michaux (son of Andre) wrote in his North American Sylva (1817-1819): "The perfect wood resists the succession of dryness and moisture longer than that of any other species, and for this quality principally, as well as its extreme lightness, it is preferred at Baltimore and Philadelphia for shingles...the houses in those cities, as well as in New York and the smaller circumjacent towns, are covered with them; they usually last thirty or thirty-five years. The superior fitness of this wood for various household utensils has given rise, in Philadelphia, to a distinct class of mechanics called Cedar coopers, and a great number of workmen are employed for the domestic and foreign market. They fabricate principally pails, wash-tubs and churns of different forms. This ware is cheap, light and neatly made; and instead of becoming dull, like that of other wood, it grows whiter and smoother by use. The hoops are made of young Cedars stripped of the bark and split into two parts." (Ref. #26D)

Historical information: White Cedar is considered the first native tree to be introduced into Europe. The French explorers under Cartier first found it in Canada and due to the miraculous properties of the tree (as explained below), he sent plants back to France where by late 1536 it was growing in Paris in the royal garden of Fontainebleau. It reached Britain in 1566 where it grows well on the Western Coastal hills. The twigs are known to have been used to produce a tea for the treatment of constipation and headache. Tea prepared with the leafy twigs and the bark is high in vitamin C and such tea saved the crew of explorer Jacques Cartier from scurvy in February 1536. His 3 ships and 110 men, having sailed from St. Malo to Stadacona, (The present site of Quebec) were ice-bound during the winter of 1535-36 while trying to find a northwest passage to China. At the time scurvy was not diagnosed. Cartier wrote:

The said unknown sickness began to spread itself amongst us after the strangest sort that ever was either heard or seen, insomuch as some did lose all their strength, and could not stand on their feet, then did their legs swell, their sinews shrink as any coal. Others also had all their skins spotted with spots of blood of a purple color; then did it ascent up to their ankles, knees, thighs, shoulders, arms and neck; their mouths became stinking, their gums so rotten that all the flesh did fall off, even to the roots of the teeth, which did also fall out. (Alan Gurney, Below the Convergence.)

Cartier wrote that the tea provided an almost instant cure. The Indians called the tree Ameda or Hanneda, and it is thought that this was undoubtedly the Northern White Cedar and from this comes the Latin name Arborvitae - the tree of life. The tea, while good for curing scurvy or rheumatism, was not considered palatable by some. Thoreau wrote:

"This night we had a dish of arbor-vitae, or cedar-tea, which the lumberer sometimes uses when other herbs fail, but I had no wish to repeat the experiment. It had too medicinal a taste for my palate. (from The Maine Woods)

The leaves and twigs produce a camphor-like oil, which may be useful as a salve but is toxic if taken internally without dilution and reduced to small quantities. The Minnesota Chippewa used the leaves along with other ingredients to make a cough syrup. (Refs. #5, 7, 20).

Another northern tree which provided a way to forestall scurvy was the Black Spruce, Picea mariana. More detail in this article about Cedars and Spruces.