Thuja plicata (plug / Western Red Cedar)

Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) is the most culturally and ecologically significant tree of the Pacific Northwest coast. A long-lived evergreen conifer of the Cupressaceae family, Western Red Cedar ranges from southeastern Alaska south along the Pacific coast through British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon into northern California. Mature trees reach 150 to 230 feet in old growth; garden specimens stay smaller, typically 50 to 70 feet.

Graceful drooping flat sprays of aromatic scale-like evergreen foliage, narrow pyramidal crown, and the signature shaggy cinnamon-red fibrous bark. Small cones ripen in fall. A conifer. Wind-pollinated, not a flowering plant.

Western Red Cedar is the Tree of Life of the Pacific Northwest coastal peoples. NAEB documents at least 152 traditional uses across 21+ Indigenous Nations including the Makah, Quileute, Quinault, Hoh, Kwakiutl, Nitinaht, Hesquiat, Klallam, Clallam, Lummi, Haisla, Hanaksiala, Bella Coola, Gitksan, Coast Salish, Chehalis, Cowlitz, Kutenai, Nez Perce, Montana Indian, Flathead, and Okanagan-Colville peoples. (The NAEB dataset retrieved was response-truncated; actual Nation count is higher.) Uses are dominated by fiber (78 records. Clothing, baskets, mats, rope, cradle bark) and other material culture (41. Ocean-going canoes, longhouses, totem poles, fishing nets), plus medicine (29) and food (4).

FEIS documents Western Red Cedar as a keystone wildlife tree. Black-tailed deer browse seedlings and saplings year-round in British Columbia; Roosevelt elk feed on them in fall, winter, and spring. Western Red Cedar is described by FEIS as "one of the most important conifer foods of black-tailed deer in the Coastal forest region of southern Vancouver Island," and a major winter food for big game in the northern Rockies. Black bears strip the bark in western Washington. Older trees provide cavity-nesting habitat for woodpeckers and many other cavity nesters.

Coastal-suited: native throughout the OR coast and foundational to local forest ecology.

A note on deer: Western Red Cedar is NOT deer-resistant. Young plants are preferred browse for black-tailed deer and Roosevelt elk year-round. Protect new plantings with cages or tall fences until they are above the browse line. The pay-off is a thousand-year tree.

Classic PNW forest keystone. Plant with Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, Vine Maple, Sword Fern, and Salal to recreate authentic Pacific Northwest forest.

This is the plug size. A young conifer seedling appropriate for restoration and large-scale plantings. Same species, same long-term growth.