October/November 2007
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A View from the Valley
NAUGAzine is an informal internet magazine, focused on the Borough of Naugatuck.
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Naugatuck USA
is located in the Naugatuck River Valley, the heart of 19th century industrial Connecticut.
Naugatuck
is re-creating itself to fit the 21st century in which we now live. It is a period of change, of opportunity, of risk, of excitement.
Someone once told me of an old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."
Well, here we are.
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NAUGAzine
A View from the Valley
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Eastern Redceder
Eastern Redceder in early October • Click to Enlarge
I was walking along the railroad tracks just north of the station in early October a couple of years ago and saw this tree. It looked sort of like ceder, but the green branchlets were rounded instead of flat. Puzzled, I looked it up in a field guide when I got home. Turns out the picture I had in my mind with the flattened branchlets was a Northern Whiteceder. The tree I saw and photographed was an Eastern Redceder, actually Juniperus virginiana — a juniper! The rounded (or almost square branchlets are characteristic, as are the waxy cones or “juniper berries” that turn gray-blue as they mature.