In article ,
P van Rijckevorsel wrote:
Mike Lyle schreef
That's interesting: the one-word form hasn't yet reached my corner of
the universe. I'll keep my eye open for it. Meanwhile, Google has
17,200 *redcedar*, of which many are web addresses, and 890,000 *red
cedar*. Google counts aren't the strongest evidence, of course; but
they do give an impression of what people are typing.

I don't know about *toona*, though I do eat *tuna*: you're probably
more up-to-date than I am , as I still place Western red cedar in
*Thuja*.

Mike.

+ + +
Well, to me usage in this case is not very interesting since I already have
a fair idea:
- redcedar is a US term, and dominates the official documentation. It refers
to eastern, southern and western redcedar. This last is Thuja plicata and
will be the wood referred to by the general US populace as "redcedar", "red
cedar" or (especially, and by a comfortable margin) "cedar" whenever a wood
is being discussed.
- red cedar in the same official US documentation will be a cedar that is
red, or more particular has red wood. This will usually be Toona (fam
Meliaceae), yielding "Australian red cedar" and "Asian red cedar"

My point was that the dictionary consulted was absolutely clueless and off
by at least two orders of magnitude. Dictionaries are fine in their place,
but no use when you really need them (sort of like banks, only worse)

Here in Ontario we call Thuja occidentalis (eastern) white cedar and
Juniperus virginiana (eastern) red cedar. The intensely aromatic red
heartwood of the latter has long been used to make chests and line
closets to deter moths. North of the range of red cedar, people put
branches of white cedar in with woolen clothes to deter moths. White
cedar is sometimes called arborvitae here.

I've never seen "redcedar", only "red cedar", until this thread, FWIW.