Wild Guide: Eastern Red Cedar

Eastern red cedar is a small to medium-sized tree, aromatic, evergreen, with a dense, pyramidal (sometimes cylindrical) crown that occurs on glades and bluffs; in open, rocky woods, pastures, and old fields; and along roadsides and fencerows. Some gnarled cedars on Ozark bluffs are over 1,000 years old. The fleshy, berrylike, globe-shaped fruits are dark blue with a white, waxy coating that appear from August to September.

Did You Know?

This tree is not technically a cedar, which is why many specialists prefer to spell “redcedar” without a letter space or else hyphenate it. “Juniper” is a better name for this plant, as it is in the genus Juniperus, in the cypress family.