FIELD NOTES: Our Red Cedar ~by Jim Eagleman
W
hen I was in high school I was given the home project of lining a closet with cedar boards. They came in a box, pre-cut, tongue and grooved, in thin pieces. I was to install them on the inside of a double-doored storage unit built in the garage. The closet would store woolens and winter clothes. It wasn’t a difficult job. I can remember to this day the pungent aroma that wafted up with each board. Since then, red
44 Our Brown County • Jan./Feb. 2021
cedar has made an impact, both as a marketable product and in its natural state. The red cedar, Juniperus virginiana is one of Indiana’s two native evergreens—the other eastern hemlock. Red cedar is familiar to most Hoosiers since they appear in every one of the state’s 92 counties. Roadside fence rows, ditches, rocky bluffs and abandoned pastures are common places to find them. The small, prickly needles, cone-shaped silhouette, and shreddy bark are field characteristics. We all recognize the aroma of cedar wood. The cedars stand out with a bit of evergreen among the leafless Brown County hardwoods that dominate the winter landscape. The needles are dark green to blue-green, opposite on the stem, and are of two types: scalelike, 1/16 inch long, appearing like a braided rope; and needle-like, half inch long, sharp and singly on the twig. After handling a few cedar branches with my bare hands to make holiday decorations, I turned to a pair of leather gloves to help deflect the stiff needles. I felt an itchiness caused by the tiny bristles from those needles, that persisted for a few hours. My friends, Laura and Dick, live on hilly Brown County land that was once farmed, but is now uncultivated. The cedars that grow here, many ages and sizes, are thick and full, exposed to full sun on a high ridge. Intrigued with the thought the red cedar was used as a
