Yellow Cedar vs. Red Cedar Tree: 6 Differences Between These Towering Giants

While we’re writing about the differences between red and yellow cedar trees, let’s start with their commonalities. Both red and yellow cedar have a history stretching back to the Indigenous peoples of America. Both are excellent choices for the production of bows, canoe paddles, dinner plates, and a variety of cutlery.

Red cedar, like yellow, is predominately a British Columbian tree, though both exist in California as well. Like yellow cedar, red cedar is just as useful and is highly regarded in traditional medicine and holistic approaches.

Both red and yellow are straight-grained, which gives them the strength properties necessary for producing bows. Today, both are used for carpentry products, both indoor and outdoor, along with a wide variety of other projects. However, there are some separate and unique differences between red and yellow cedar as well.

Differences Between Red and Yellow Cedar

Historically and presently, both red and yellow cedar are highly regarded and highly coveted in terms of lumber. Much of this regard is aesthetic, though historically, both kinds of wood found many uses throughout indigenous societies.

1. Habitat of Red and Yellow Cedar

First and foremost, it’s important to understand that there are two red cedars—western and eastern. Combined, the two stretch across the entire United States. Alone, each type of red cedar is native to its directional moniker. Easter red cedar stretches from the east coast, north of central Florida, to Texas, and north to the southeastern portion of South Dakota. Western red cedar encompasses all the rest.

Yellow cedar is an extreme west and north tree, stretching from northern California to Alaska, predominately in British Columbia.

2. Physical Characteristics

While yellow cedar is a soft wood, it’s one of the hardest softwoods on the planet, if not the hardest. When cut, it has an extraordinarily rich, yellow hue, hence the name. Yellow cedars grow to about 26 yards (ca. 24 meters) in height and will approach 1,000 years of life if left alone and healthy. It’s a medium-sized tree, with droopy, scale-like leaves and branches that are wide at the bottom and narrow at the top.

Red cedar is much larger, growing to heights of 60 yards (ca. 55 meters) and surviving as long as a yellow cedar in ideal conditions. Unlike the pointy top of a yellow cedar, a red cedar will often fork and lose consistency in shape as it grows older. Its leaves resemble yellow cedars, but its bark is long and stringy, peeling off in long strips. As a softwood, it’s much weaker than yellow cedar, though it finds extensive use in the lumber industry.

3. Commercial Uses

Yellow cedar is a seriously tough softwood, which makes it a precious commodity for indoor and outdoor use in residential and commercial buildings. This is the biggest of the key differences between red and yellow cedar, though red has many uses as well. Yellow is highly prized, not only for its toughness but also for its long-term durability.

When finished, yellow cedar looks incredible, with a straight grain that creates an amazing aesthetic. Despite its toughness and strength, it’s also very easy to work with, which only expands its usefulness in several residential and commercial products.

Red cedar, on the other hand, has a deep, rich, and very warm look to it. As a much softer softwood, it’s often applied indoors, mostly for walls, window frames, door frames, and other places throughout the home that don’t sustain foot traffic. It’s not the best in terms of flooring and will degrade quickly.

However, red cedar is remarkably resilient to rot, insects, and UV Light, so there are decent outdoor applications for it as well. This is especially true from a decorative standpoint. Indigenous peoples are richly entwined with the history of red cedar in the US. For this reason, the wood is used as a decorative item in many of today’s reenactments and ceremonies.

4. Preservation Status

Most of the time, the differences between red and yellow cedar trees are discussed in terms of the lumber industry. This naturally leads to questions of preservation and protection. While the eastern red cedar is under no threat from the depopulation of trees via the lumber industry, there are concerns about the western red cedar.

However, as for now, the western red cedar is not on a list of endangered play species. A recent study on tree mortality, conducted by bioRxiv, indicates that there are concerns about the western red cedar, among other trees. This is mostly due to climate concerns and harvesting.

Like the eastern red cedar, there are currently no concerns about yellow cedar, and it’s not on any endangered species list. The U.S. Forest Service keeps a steady eye on the status of these trees throughout the country, and there is no indication or warning signs concerning the status of yellow cedars.

5. Classification

While there are differences in the classification between red cedar and yellow cedar, they both share something in common. Neither yellow nor red cedar trees are cedar trees. Yellow cedar trees are a form of conifer, while red cedar trees are junipers. The eastern red cedar is Juniperus virginiana. The western red cedar is Thuja plicata.

Western red cedars are often labeled, “redcedar,” as one word. This way, the indication is clear—it’s not an actual cedar. Yellow cedars are cypress trees—Chamaecyparis nootkatensis.

6. Availability Differences in Red and Yellow Cedar

As a high-demand wood, thanks to its aesthetic, incredible durability, and easy workability, yellow cedar carries the label of “premium wood.” There’s no shortage of yellow cedar supply on the market, though you may run into problems getting a specific yellow cedar, such as Alaskan yellow cedar.

Both eastern and western red cedar are in steady supply. The western variety is softer and easier to work with when it comes to nails and screws because it resists splitting. Eastern red cedar is more brittle, so extra care is necessary in its use.

Final Thoughts

There are subtle and wider differences between red and yellow cedar, and there are also a lot of similarities. The fact that neither is a cedar is just one commonality between the two. In the lumber industry, the differences are far more drastic. Yellow cedar is tougher and offers a specific aesthetic that makes it useful for indoor and outdoor applications.

Red cedar is the softer of the two and not as useful in hard-use environments. However, red cedar is often used in decorative applications, inside and out, thanks to its UV, rot, and bug resistance. Both wood types have their respective values, and both are popular in residential and commercial use.

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