Types of Cypress and Cedar Trees: How to Tell the Real Ones From the Impostors
Half the trees sold as “cedar” in America aren’t cedars. The tag says cedar, the wood smells like cedar, and the tree is actually a juniper or an arborvitae. Real cedars belong to one small genus, Cedrus, and there are only four of them worth planting in a yard. Everything else borrowing the name is a different tree entirely.
This guide sorts out the whole confusing pile: the three true cedars you’ll actually find at a nursery, the two cypress most homeowners plant, and the impostors wearing the cedar label. If you’re shopping by job rather than by species, our evergreen trees guide covers privacy and windbreak picks, and the types of trees guide maps the broader categories. This page is about telling the individual species apart so you don’t plant the wrong one.
Cedar vs. cypress at a glance
Here’s the whole family lined up. Note that the last three carry “cedar” in their common name but aren’t in the Cedrus genus at all.
| Tree | Mature size | Zones | Growth rate | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara) | 30-50 ft × 30-40 ft | 7-9 | 13-24 in/yr | Graceful specimen, warm-climate screen |
| Blue Atlas Cedar (Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca’) | 40-60 ft × 30-40 ft | 6-9 | up to 24 in/yr | Silver-blue focal-point tree |
| Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani) | 40-60 ft × 30-50 ft | 5-7 | slow (under 12 in/yr young) | Long-lived heirloom specimen |
| Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) | 40-70 ft × 3-6 ft | 7-10 | 1-3 ft/yr young | Formal vertical accent |
| Leyland Cypress (× Cupressocyparis leylandii) | 40-60 ft × 15-25 ft | 6-10 | 3-4 ft/yr | Fast screen (with disease caveats) |
| Arborvitae (Thuja), “white cedar” | 12-60 ft, varies | 2-8 | 6 in-5 ft/yr | Hedges (not a true cedar) |
| Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) | 30-65 ft × 8-25 ft | 2-9 | 1-2 ft/yr | Tough native (a juniper, not a cedar) |
The quick field test: true cedars hold their needles in little tufts or clusters along the branch, like a shaving brush, and their cones sit upright on top of the branch like small barrels. Cypress and the impostors have flat, scaly, overlapping foliage and round or nubby cones. Once you’ve seen that difference, you can’t unsee it.
The true cedars (genus Cedrus)
There are only a handful of real cedars, and they’re all big, long-lived conifers with that distinctive tufted needle arrangement. Three show up in the North American nursery trade, and our cedar tree growing guide covers planting and care for all of them.
Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara)
The deodar is the true cedar most Californians already know, even if they’ve never learned its name. It matures around 30 to 50 feet tall and nearly as wide, with soft gray-green needles and drooping branch tips that give it a weeping, almost feathery look. Native to the western Himalayas, it handles zone 9 heat and clay far better than the other cedars, which is why it’s the standard warm-climate cedar from Sacramento to San Diego. Give it room, because those graceful branches spread wide with age.
Blue Atlas Cedar (Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca’)
If you’ve spotted a cedar with electric silver-blue foliage anchoring a front yard, that’s the blue atlas. The straight species comes from the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, but ‘Glauca’ is the cultivar everyone plants for that steel-blue color. It reaches 40 to 60 feet tall and 30 to 40 wide over a long life, and it’s the least cold-hardy of the true cedars, comfortable in zones 6 through 9. It resents transplanting because of a deep taproot, so buy it container-grown and plant it where it can stay put for the next 100 years.
Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani)
This is the cedar of the flag, the scripture, and the old estate gardens. Cedar of Lebanon is the most cold-hardy of the group (zones 5 to 7) and the slowest by a wide margin, often putting on under a foot a year and taking two decades to hit 20 feet. Young trees are pyramidal, then they flatten into those iconic tiered, horizontal branches with age. It’s a tree you plant for your grandkids, not for quick screening.
The cypress most homeowners plant
Cypress trees have flat, scale-like foliage and a completely different silhouette from cedars. Two dominate residential landscapes.
Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens)
The exclamation-point tree. Italian cypress grows 40 to 70 feet tall but stays a stunning 3 to 6 feet wide, the tightest height-to-width ratio of any common landscape tree. It thrives in the Mediterranean climate of zones 7 through 10, tolerating drought, heat, and salt once established. Don’t shear it; the columnar form is natural, and cutting into it wrecks the shape. Root rot in soggy soil kills more of these than any pest does. Our Italian cypress growing guide covers siting, canker prevention, and the watering mistakes to avoid.
Leyland Cypress (× Cupressocyparis leylandii)
Leyland is the fast, cheap screen the nursery pushes hardest, and the one I’d steer you away from. It’s a hybrid (Monterey cypress crossed with Nootka false cypress) that rockets up 3 to 4 feet a year to 40-plus feet tall and 15 to 25 wide in zones 6 to 10. The problem is that Seiridium and Botryosphaeria cankers have wiped out whole hedges across the Southeast once the trees crowd together and get stressed. If you want that speed without the die-off, our fast-growing evergreen trees guide ranks the better replacements.
The impostors: trees that borrow the cedar name
Here’s where the confusion lives. Several common landscape trees carry “cedar” in their name and aren’t cedars at all.
Arborvitae (Thuja) is sold as “white cedar” or “western red cedar,” and it’s the most planted privacy hedge in the country. It’s a Thuja, not a Cedrus, with flat sprays of scaly foliage. Green Giant and Emerald Green arborvitae are the workhorses here, both covered in our columnar evergreen trees guide.
Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is a juniper, full stop. It’s the tough native you see colonizing fencerows and highway medians across zones 2 to 9, and the source of that classic “cedar closet” aroma. The narrow ‘Taylor’ cultivar makes a fine skinny screen. Just know it hosts cedar-apple rust, so keep it away from apple trees. Our juniper growing guide sorts out the many junipers wearing the cedar label, and the cedar-apple rust guide explains the disease.
Incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) and Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) round out the group. Both are Pacific natives, both smell wonderful, and neither is a true cedar either.
The honest catch on all of them
True cedars are specimen trees that eat space. A deodar or atlas cedar wants 30-plus feet of clearance from your house, and none of the three make a tidy hedge. Plant one where you have room for a wide, spreading crown, or you’ll be paying $800 to $1,500 to have a beautiful mistake removed in fifteen years.
On the cypress side, Italian cypress is the opposite problem. It’s so narrow that a single tree reads as an accent, not a screen; you need a whole row to block anything. And Leyland’s speed is a trap, since the canker diseases show up right when the trees finally look established.
Which one should you plant?
Match the tree to the job, not the other way around.
- Want a striking single focal-point tree? Blue atlas cedar for the silver-blue color, or a deodar for softer, weeping grace. Both need space.
- Want a formal, vertical Mediterranean look? Italian cypress, planted in a row or flanking an entry. Read the Italian cypress growing guide first so you site it in fast-draining soil.
- Want a fast privacy screen? Skip Leyland. Green Giant arborvitae or one of the alternatives in the fast-growing evergreen trees guide will get you there without the disease gamble.
- Gardening in a warm, dry zone 9? Deodar cedar and Italian cypress are your two best bets, both drought-tough once established.
- Planting an heirloom tree for the next generation? Cedar of Lebanon, if you’re in zones 5 to 7 and can wait.
When you set any of these tall, top-heavy conifers, a young Italian cypress or a nursery-grown cedar catches wind like a sail before the roots take hold. A heavy-duty tree stake kit keeps the trunk plumb through the first two winters, and you pull it once the tree anchors itself. For siting these near the house and reading a mature-size tag correctly, these landscaping basics cover the practical side.
A short word on the naming mess
None of this is your fault. Early American colonists smelled the aromatic wood of junipers and thujas, decided it smelled like the cedar of the Old World, and slapped the name on. Three centuries later, the nursery tags still say cedar even though a botanist would tell you eastern red cedar is a juniper, western red cedar is a thuja, and only Cedrus trees are the real thing. When you’re shopping, ignore the common name and check the Latin. If it starts with Cedrus, it’s a true cedar. If it doesn’t, you’re buying something else, which may be exactly the right tree for your yard anyway.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a cedar and a cypress? True cedars (genus Cedrus) hold needles in tufted clusters and bear upright, barrel-shaped cones. Cypress (genus Cupressus) have flat, scaly, overlapping foliage and small round cones. They’re separate genera that only look related from a distance.
Are there any true cedar trees native to North America? No. Every North American “cedar” (eastern red cedar, western red cedar, incense cedar, northern white cedar) is actually a juniper, thuja, or calocedrus. All true cedars in the Cedrus genus are native to the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and North Africa.
Is Italian cypress a cedar? No. Italian cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) is a true cypress, not a cedar. It has scale-like foliage and a narrow columnar shape, completely different from the wide, tufted-needle form of a real cedar.
Which cedar or cypress grows best in a hot dry climate? Deodar cedar and Italian cypress both handle zone 9 heat and drought once established. Deodar tolerates clay soil better; Italian cypress needs sharp drainage. Cedar of Lebanon and blue atlas cedar prefer cooler zones (5 to 9).
Is Leyland cypress worth planting? Usually not. Leyland cypress grows fast but is prone to Seiridium and Botryosphaeria canker, which have killed entire hedges across the Southeast. Green Giant arborvitae and Murray cypress give similar speed with far better disease resistance.
How do I tell a true cedar from an arborvitae at the nursery? Look at the foliage. A true cedar has stiff needles in little clusters, like a shaving brush. Arborvitae (Thuja) has soft, flat, fan-like sprays of scales. If the tag says “white cedar” or “western red cedar” but the foliage is flat and scaly, it’s an arborvitae.