The climate of the west coast of North America favours trees that grow to enormous size, one of them being the western redcedar. In its natural range it can achieve 70m in height, a giant conifer with brown-grey fibrous bark and shiny scale-like leaves.
In its native habitat in the north-east of North America, the red cedar typically grows on mires and at the edges of cliffs, where competition from other species is minimal. The species is slow-growing but durable; as many as 1650 annual rings have been counted on a felled tree.
Rarely grown in the West, the Korean thuja is native to a small mountainous area of eastern Manchuria and to northern parts of the Korean peninsula. This slow-growing conical tree can reach over 10m in its native habitat but often remains shrubby in less favourable spots. Due to excessive forest clearance for agriculture, there are few reproductive trees left and the species is on the endangered list in its native area.