Calocedrus decurrens, Incense Cedar (10)
The Incense Cedars have thick fibrous brown bark when they are mature. When they are young, their bark is a deep red. The trees are erect and single stemmed and old individuals have fluted bases. Incense Cedars range in height from 80 feet to 150 feet and in diameter from 3 feet to 6 feet and can live to be over 500 years old.
The leaves of Incense Cedars are light green and resinous. They are small and sharp and cover the branches like scales. The tree is coniferous and evergreen and produces leathery pendant like cones.
The Incense Cedar has a wide distribution, ranging from northern Oregon to Baja California (Stuart and Sawyer, 2001). In California, it is generally found in mixed coniferous forests from 150 feet to 9700 feet. Like the Port Orford Cedar, it is tolerant of Serpentine soil (Ornduff, 1974).
Incense Cedar is a very shade tolerant tree. As a result, it is currently playing an important successional role in California’s coniferous forests (Stuart and Sawyer, 2001). Since fire suppression has been one of the main goals of forest management in recent decades, often to ensure future timber supplies, the understories of old growth forests have become increasingly dense. Since the Incense Cedar is adapted to these shady environments, it flourishes in the understory (Barbour and Major, 1988). As it matures, it can sometimes out-compete the old growth trees, causing them to become less healthy.
On the upshot, Incense Cedar wood makes fabulously fragrant pencils.