Eastern White Cedar
Ojibwe Name:
giizhigaa'aandak
Scientific Name:
Thuja occidentalis
Significance in Ojibwe Cultures:
What happens when you use cedar tea to bathe? It purges your lymph vessels and nodes, relieving your skin of this constant slow leech of toxins and garbage that is slowly secreted onto the surface of your skin which is the cause of a ton of problems.
How to Identify the Leaves:
"Cones from the eastern white cedar are 7 to 12 millimetres long and grow in clumps of 5 or 6 pairs. Small scaly leaves cover the tree’s fan-shaped twigs and are a yellowish-green colour.
The bark of the eastern white cedar is thin and shiny when the tree is young, but separates into flat narrow strips as the tree gets older. White-tailed deer eat the twigs of the eastern white cedar during the winter."
Sources:
How to Identify Tree: https://www.ontario.ca/page/eastern-white-cedar