[2] Since then, the salt tolerant Casuarina equisetifolia has been planted as a replacement species, and a small number of Bermuda cedars have been found to be resistant to the scale insects.

[3][4] The Bermuda cedar is an evergreen tree growing up to 15 metres (49 feet) tall with a trunk up to 60 centimetres (24 inches) thick, though larger specimens have existed in the past.

The foliage is produced in blue-green sprays, with the individual shoots 1.3–1.6 millimetres (3⁄64–1⁄16 inch) wide, four-sided (quadriform) in section.

The male cones are 4–6 mm long and begin yellow, turning brown after pollen release in early spring.

With the loss of so many trees, the populations of these bird species have declined to near extinction including the Bermuda white-eyed vireo, and a possible subspecies of eastern bluebird.

With recent sea level rises, the roots of some low-lying old-growth cedars are being immersed in seawater and are beginning to die off.

Furthermore, the timber was found to repel moths and fleas as well as prevent mildew and rot, so many Bermuda residents used the wood to line closets and drawers.

After Bermuda's economy became wholly devoted to maritime activities, farmland was quickly reforested to provide timber for shipbuilding.

For many generations, the British Government and its local functionaries, and many visitors, bemoaned the failure of Bermudians to fell the forest and return to farming, which was generally perceived as idleness.

On the relationship between the islanders and the cedar, Purser Richard Otter of the Royal Navy observed in a 1828 publication:[9] Of the twelve thousand acres which Bermuda is said to contain, two thousand might be brought into cultivation if there was less veneration for cedar trees, and a trifling exertion made to drain or embank the marshes, whereas at present there are not two hundred acres disturbed by the spade or the plough; indeed there is but one plough in the Colony, and that belongs to an Englishman named Winsor, who has proved what could be made of ground apparently barren...Following the 1783 independence of the continental colonies that formed the United States of America, and barriers raised in the 1820s by the new republic to trade by British vessels, as well as global changes in the shipping industry (particularly the move from wooden sailing vessels to metal steamers) resulted in the protracted withering away of Bermudians' maritime trades and ship building during the 19th Century,[10] though also increasing the demand for locally-sourced firewood.