[L.; = tree of life.]
1. Bot. Popular name of several evergreen shrubs of the genus Thuja, N.O. Coniferæ.
1664. Evelyn, Silva (1812), II. 40. This tree [Thuya] by some called Arbor Vitæ … is of a hardy green all the winter.
1860. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., V. VI. ix. § 2. In some ambiguous trees (as the arbor vitæ) there is no proper stem to the outer leaves.
2. Phys. The arborescent appearance of a longitudinal section of the cerebellum.
1800. Carlisle, in Phil. Trans., XCI. 142. The intermixture of the cortical and medullary substances form the appearance called Arbor vitæ.
1880. in Syd. Soc. Lex.
