thuja

A genus of trees, usually called cedar in America. Very common, and very tall, along the Canadian West Coast; in Europe, only occurs in parks and gardens.

Unlike true cedars, which are related to pines and firs, this tree belongs to a more primitive form of conifers and is related to redwoods and cypresses.

Thu"ja (?), n. [NL., from Gr. an African tree with sweet-smelling wood.] Bot.

A genus of evergreen trees, thickly branched, remarkable for the distichous arrangement of their branches, and having scalelike, closely imbricated, or compressed leaves.

[Written also thuya.] See Thyine wood.

⇒ Thuja occidentalis is the Arbor vitae of the Eastern and Northern United States. T. gigantea of North-waetern America is a very large tree, there called red cedar, and canoe cedar, and furnishes a useful timber.

<-- thuja oil. cedar leaf oil. thujone. n. An oil, C10H16O, the chief constituent of cedar leaf oil. A stimulant similar to camphor. Also called thujol, thuyol, absinthol, thuyone, tanacetol, tanacetone. [Stedman 25]-->

 

© Webster 1913.