Archery Incense cedar was one of the favored varieties of wood used to make bows by Native Americans in California. Like
juniper, and
Pacific yew, the other two coveted bow woods among Pacific Natives, this wood has excellent flexibility and compression strength-weight ratio. When backed with sinew, it produces extremely flexible, fast, hard-hitting bows, which are rivaled only by horn-sinew composite bows for their ability to store and release elastic energy. The archer Saxton Pope observed that
Ishi used this wood to produce short bows.
Lumber The
wood of
Calocedrus is soft, moderately decay-resistant, and with a strong spicy-resinous fragrance. That of
C. decurrens is the primary material for wooden
pencils, because it is soft and tends to sharpen easily without forming splinters. The two Asian species were (at least in the past) in very high demand for
coffin manufacture in China, due to the scent of the wood and its decay resistance. It is likely that past
over-exploitation is responsible for their current rarity. Incense cedar was the preferred
hearth board of the Native Peoples of
Northern California for
lighting fires by friction.
Cultivation Calocedrus decurrens, the California incense cedar, is a popular
ornamental tree, grown particularly in locations with cool summer climates like
Britain,
Washington and
British Columbia. Its very narrow columnar crown in landscape settings, an unexplained consequence of the climatic conditions in these areas, is not shown by trees in their native 'wild'
habitat. The California incense cedar is also valued for its
drought tolerance. The Asian species are rarely cultivated. ==References==