Arbor vita

Arbor-vita (Thuya) - Evergreen cone-bearing trees, some of much beauty, but the group is represented in gardens by numbers of worthless shrubs and mean trees; happily, the species are not so numerous as they seem from the many names that have been given to their mostly ugly varieties.

Thuja occidentalis L. - arborvitae

Thuja occidentalis L. - arborvitae

Thuja occidentalis L. - arborvitae

Thuja plicata Donn ex D. Don - western red cedar

Thuja occidentalis L. - arborvitae

Thuja occidentalis L. - arborvitae

Japanese Arbor-vitae (Thuya Dolobrata) - A distinct and beautiful evergreen tree, perhaps the most graceful of the group, fine in color and very hardy. Fortunately it seems less ready than most to sport into the worthless dwarf and variegated forms. It is said to attain its finest stature in mountain woods in Japan, and to grow well under other trees, and it should be worth trying in like circumstances in England. It comes very freely from layers, in fact, the lower branches of the trees root themselves freely, and these over-facile ways of increase make it all the more necessary that we should get healthy seedling trees, as suckers take bushy rather than tree form. Syn., Thuyopsis.

Giant Arbor-vitae (Thuya Gigantea) - A tall and noble tree, fine in stature and form, hardy and healthy in England, thriving in ordinary soils, and a free and rapid grower, attaining in its own country a maximum height of 150 feet, and its wood is fine-grained and very useful. N.W. America; finest on the Columbia River. Syns., T. Lobbi, T. Craigiana, T. menziesii.

Western Arbor-vitae (Thuya Occidentale) - A poor hardy evergreen tree which has varied much in color and foliage and form. Ponderous Latin names have been applied to worthless varieties, of which over twenty are given in some catalogues. It is used to get shelter fences and hedges rapidly, though by no means so good for that purpose as our own native shrubs like the Yew, Box and Holly, and it would be no great loss to omit it from the garden altogether; all the more so, perhaps, as it is one of the cheap evergreens used in the muddle mixture of the common shrubbery.

Chinese Arbor-vitae (Thuya Orientalis) - A tree with little of the beauty of the Pine or Cypress, and which has, unfortunately, given rise to a crowd of varieties, variegated, silvery, golden, and other dense, monstrous, and pendulous shapes, mystified by Latin names. Not only are they poor in themselves, but they keep the mind away from the central fact of the beauty, dignity, and great value of the Pine race. These varieties have again synonyms, and some of them get into cultivation under the wrong name of Retinospora.

Standishs Arbor-vitae (Thuya Japonica) - A graceful evergreen tree of medium size, attaining a height of over 50 feet, with branches of a slender pendulous character of a fresh green color. A native of the mountains of C. Japan, it was introduced by Fortune, and sent out by the late John Standish of Ascot, but has not yet been much grown. The form usually seen is said not to be the true wild tree—a reason for getting seed from Japanese sources. Happily this has not yet, like so many others, sported into a mass of varieties. Syn., Thuyopsis Standishi.

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