After these, I shall not here descend to the inferior kinds, which some call dwarfs, and common juniper-like shrubs, fitter to head the borders of coronary gardners, and to be shorn. There is yet another of the North-America, lighter than cork it self, of a fragrant scent, which is its only virtue. In short,
After all these exotics brought from our plantations, answering to the name of cedar, I should esteem that of the Vermuda, little inferior, if not superior, to the noblest Libanon, and next, that of Carolina for its many uses, and lasting.
Having spoken of their several species, we come now to the culture, best rais’d from the seeds, since it would be difficult to receive any store from abroad: To begin with that of M. Libanus; Those which seem of the greatest antiquity, are indeed majestical, extending the boughs and branches, with their cones _sursum spectantia_, as by most we are told; though a late{ 255:1} traveller found otherwise, and depending, like other coniferous trees; the sturdy arms, though in smaller sprigs, grow in time so weighty, as often to bend the very stem, and main shaft, whilst that which is most remarkable, is the structure of the cones and seeds receptacles, tack’d and rang’d between the branch-leaves, in such order, as nothing appears more curious and artificial, and at a little distance, exceedingly beautiful: These cones have the bases rounder, shorter, or rather thicker, and with blunter points, the whole circum-zon’d, as it were, with pretty broad thick scales, which adhere together in exact series to the very top and summit, where they are somewhat smaller; but the entire lorication smoother couch’d than those of the fir-kind: Within these repositories under the scales, nestle the small nutting seeds, or rather kernels, of a pear-shape, though somewhat bigger; which how nourish’d and furnish’d from the central style, with their other integuments, is admirably describ’d by Mr. Ray, as that of the stalk of the clogs, thicker and longer, and so firmly knit to them, that it requires considerable force to part them from the branch, without splitting the arm it self. We have said nothing concerning the leaf of this tree, which much resembles those of the _larix_, but somewhat longer and closer set, erect and perpetually green, which those of the larch are not; but hanging down, drop-off, and desert the tree in Winter.
