Roadside cedars prove their power after recent winter storms

Driving on Interstate 55 north of the construction zone earlier this month I earned a new bit of respect for the eastern red cedar tree. While I still harbor some ill feelings, seeing several small soldiers poking through the piles of plowed snow, sleet, slush and slop in the chunk rock median proves the tree’s toughness.

I guess those little guys go mostly unnoticed among litter and other debris in the ditches the rest of the year, but their twigs of green extending through the winter muck was almost inspirational. You’ll have to look for them yourself because from the car window at 70 mph is not a very opportune photo op.

You can see an eastern red cedar just about anywhere else you look in Jefferson County. A native species, it has some characteristics of an invasive, but it also harbors a host of interesting idiosyncrasies, starting with the fact that it is not a cedar tree at all. It is also not a pine tree like most of Missouri’s other evergreens.

The eastern red cedar is a juniper and a member of the cypress family. Ashe’s juniper is the state’s only other native in the class, but it is limited to the southwest corner of the Ozarks, according to the state Department of Conservation‘s online Field Guide.

One other neat name note about the tree may only be interesting to word nerds like me. Experts have attempted to have the tree’s name spelled as one word, redcedar, to differentiate it from the cedar genus, but just like its name, people are going to call it what they want and spell it in a way that suits themselves.

Prior to Christmas tree lots and farms growing spruces and pines for in-home holiday decorations, the eastern red cedar was the choice in most American homes that celebrated by bring a sawed-off symbol indoors.

Some solid Ozarks folklore follows the cedar tree, according to the state website. “It was considered ‘very bad luck’ to bring cedar boughs into the home – except during Christmas, and then, they had to be removed completely before 12 a.m. on January 6 (Epiphany).”

Transplanting a red cedar is also considered bad luck. Folklore collector Vance Randolph described several examples of people refusing to move cedar trees because they thought it would bring an early death to them or someone in their family, the online source says.

I take some pride and joy driving past our old house on Four Ridge Road in House Springs and seeing the cedars that I moved from the woods to the road edge. Those four little spades-full of dirt have become a mighty green wall in the past 30 years. Hopefully whatever relative I may have cursed can forgive me.

That example of indestructibility highlights the tree’s pluses and minuses. If they can grow in a rocky highway median, they certainly can proliferate in places with even a little amount of soil. Floating down a Missouri stream it is not uncommon to see a scraggly cedar clinging to a sheer rock bluff.

“Some gnarled cedars on Ozark bluffs are over 1,000 years old,” the website states.

Prior to European settlement those cliffs where fire couldn’t reach were the only places the trees grew abundantly. In places like Valley View and Victoria Glades Natural Areas near Hillsboro, the trees have to be controlled to keep them from out-competing the native plant species.

Eastern red cedars tend “to invade glades and prairies that are not burned periodically, damaging prairie plants’ ability to survive, and ultimately turning a grassland into a forest,” according to the field guide. “Prescribed burning and cutting of woody plants like cedars helps prairies and glades to survive.”

We cut them down and remove them regularly in the woods where we go deer hunting. Their thick crowns block long views and their shade prohibits other plants from growing beneath them. Lest you think our cedar eradication efforts could remove too many, I can tell you with ultimate certainty that when you think you have cleared them all from an area there are many more underfoot than you can count.

Eastern red cedar wood is popular for chests and clothing storage because of its aroma, and its rot-resistance makes for great posts and other in-ground applications. Many birds eat the trees’ little blue berries, and once those seeds make their way through the birds, more sturdy sprouts are going to appear in the woods, fields, road side ditches, and highway medians.

John Winkelman has been writing about outdoors news and issues in Jefferson County for more than 30 years and was the Associate Editor for Outdoor Guide Magazine.