ABSTRACT
Important conifers not within the Pinaceae family and growing in the South are eastern redcedar and its southern redcedar variety, southern baldcypress and its pondcypress variety, and Atlantic white-cedar. Eastern redcedar trees growing in abundance and of high quality in the cedar barrens of high pH soils in Tennessee and Alabama provided commercial markets for several generations of Americans. Cedar chests and cedar-lined closets, erroneously believed to repel moths (it is the air-tightness of the chest that does), utilized vast volumes of the heartwood through the 1950s. The development of porous surface soils under eastern redcedar as a result of the species’ calciphylous nature and the casts of earthworms, encouraged by the supply of calcium in fallen litter, suggests utilizing the species on lands requiring watershed protection. This tree, because of its fruit, also justifies management for wildlife objectives.
