Red Cedar Trees - Discover Nature (KRCG)

mdc.mo.gov

This holiday season the Missouri Department of Conservation wants to help you to discover nature and learn about the eastern red cedar.

By far the most common native evergreen tree in the state, eastern red cedar is useful for its aromatic red wood and beloved for its greenery.

It is also a great yuletide choice.

Cedars have a really nice cone shape and they smell great indoors.

They are a little prickly, and they are not your traditional spruce or pine or fir, but our native cedars make wonderful Christmas trees.

While most red cedars don't end up in the home, those that stay outside add green to winter's landscape.

Cedar branches can be loaded with blue berries from fall through winter.

The berries attract living ornaments in the form of robins, bluebirds and cedar waxwings.

Come spring, mockingbirds, robins and mourning doves will seek these same protective branches for their nests.

December is a good time to consider our common red cedar, sharing its gifts with both people and wildlife.