Ar'bor Vi'tae (tree of life), the name of several cone-bearing trees, allied to the cypress, with flattened branchlets, and small or scale-like leaves, overlapping like the shingles on a roof. The common arbor vitae is a native of North America, where it grows to the height of forty or fifty feet. The young twigs have an agreeable balsamic smell. The Chinese arbor vitae, common in Britain, yields a resin which was formerly thought to have medicinal virtues.