Nature made ample provision for the spread and perpetuation of this tree. The seeds are fairly abundant, are light, have good wing power, and are great travelers in search of suitable places to germinate and take root. The tree’s greatest enemy is fire. The cedar’s bark is thin, even when trunks are mature, and a moderate blaze often proves fatal to large trees; but small ones, with all their branches close to the ground, have no chance when the fire burns the litter among them. Some tree seeds germinate readily on soil bared by fire--such as lodgepole pine, wild red cherry, and paper birch--but the western red cedar’s do not, if the humus is sufficiently burned to lessen the soil’s capacity to retain moisture. For that reason, this cedar seldom follows fire, and the result is that it constantly loses ground. Under normal conditions, it is not exacting in its requirements; but anything that disturbs natural conditions is more likely to harm than help this cedar. In that respect it is like beech and hemlock, which suffer when forest conditions are disturbed.
Trunks are large but not shapely. They are generally fluted, and greatly swelled at the base. These deformities develop rather late in the tree’s life; at least, they are not prominent in young timber. Western cedar poles of large size are beautiful in outline; but when maturity approaches, the trunk grows faster near the ground than some distance above; the annual rings are wider near the base than twenty feet above, resulting in great enlargement near the ground. At the same time ribs and creases slowly develop, and by the time the tree is old, it is as ungainly as one of the giant sequoias. Its appearance is hurt by characteristics other than the swelled base and the buttresses. While the tree is small, the limbs ascend, and maintain a graceful upright position. Toward middle life they begin to droop, and the limbs of old trees hang down the trunks--the reverse of their attitude in early life.
The western red cedar lives to an old age, from 600 to 1,000 years. The oldest are liable to be hollow near the ground. The tree is remarkable for what happens after it falls. Often the trunk crashes down in a bed of moss, which in a few years buries it from sight. The moss holds so much water that the buried log is constantly too wet for fungous attack. Consequently decay does not take place. Fallen trees have lain for hundreds of years--as much as 800 having been claimed in one instance--and at the end of that time they are sound enough for shingles. The position of living trees growing upon buried logs furnishes the key to the length of time since the trunks fell. The long period during which the moss-buried wood has remained sound has led to the claim that western red cedar is the most enduring wood in America. Such is not necessarily the case. A good many others would probably last as long if protected in the same way.