Cedar, Incense

The California Incense Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) is a large tree reaching heights up to 150 foot with a trunk near 84 inches (DBH). At high elevations; especially on dry, exposed sites, trees tend to be small and scrubby.

A broad, conic crown of spreading branches is common to this species while a narrower columnar crown is an unexplained consequence of the climatic conditions in parts of the northern Pacific Northwest. Although survival is best under partial shade, incense-cedar seedlings survive over a broader array of site conditions than do most conifers. Established incense-cedar seedlings are remarkably drought tolerant and valued as an ornamental tree.

The foliage is produced in flattened sprays with scale-like LEAVES 0.08 to 0.59 inches long; they are arranged in opposite decussate pairs, with the successive pairs closely then distantly spaced, forming apparent whorls of four; the facial pairs are flat, with the lateral pairs folded over their bases. The leaves are bright green on both sides of the shoots with only inconspicuous stomata.

The SEED cones are 0.8 to 1.5 inch long, pale green to yellow, with four (rarely six) scales arranged in opposite decussate pairs; the outer pair of scales each bears two winged seeds, the inner pair(s) usually being sterile and fused together in a flat plate. The cones turn orange to yellow-brown when mature about 8 months after pollination. The pollen cones are 0.25 inch long at pollen shed in late winter to early spring.

Incense cedar is monoecious having both male and female flowers occurring on the same TWIG. Medium to heavy seed crops are borne at intervals usually averaging 3 to 6 years. Periodically cone crops are absent entirely.

The BARK is orange-brown weathering to grayish, smooth at first, becoming fissured and exfoliating in long strips on the lower trunk on old trees.

Incense cedars are slow-growing and long-lived, typically growing at altitudes of 165 -6,600 ft. in its northern extreme and 3,000 – 9,700 ft. in its southern limits. Large trees often are more than 500 years old with the oldest recorded age 542 years for a tree only 51 inches DBH.

The WOOD is a primary material for wooden pencils, because it is soft and tends to sharpen easily without forming splinters.

This tree is the preferred host of a wood wasp, Syntexis libocedrii, a living fossil species which lays its eggs in the smoldering wood immediately after a forest fire. The tree is also host to Incense cedar mistletoe (Phoradendron libocedri), a parasitic plant which can often be found hanging from its branches.