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Some do. Others use cypress or other woods, usually depends on what is available and cheap.
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Walk to the closet part of your big box store where they sell cedar planks as insect repellants for closets. Take a whiff of one, then you'll know what cedar smells like. There's a very distinct smell of cedar compared to pine.
Still Learning,
Allan Hill
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Eastern Red Cedar and Western Red Cedar are two different genus. In the Midwest we mainly build from Western Red Cedar and use Eastern Red Cedar as closet and chest lining to protect against moths. I am not sure if Western Red Cedar makes it out to the Eastern US.
Any free advice given is worth double price paid.
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If the benches aren't US made they could be some weird semi-durable tropical wood that the Chinese were able to get a deal on?
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Still Learning,
Allan Hill
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Location: W. of Rainier, E. of Orcas
With the exception of Cedrus libani, Cedar of Lebanon, I have pretty much seen and used most of the cedars. Most can be a dermal and respiratory irritant to some people. It's like English Ivy which I find very irritating. I keep thinking I got into poison ivy. Surprised?
Odor is a key identifier. As far as fragrance is concerned, one would need to test perfumes to find a general match with individual wood. It's the only way I can think of to be realistic and have a reader find a go-by, (smell-by?). I know roses use a standard list of fragrance types, but given the rampant butchery of standards that is not a great source for guidance.
Those woods I have can be fragrant to some degree--weaker than black walnut to those greater--and one or two are extremely potent (Port Orford) which can drive you out of the room or house it is in. Luckily, or sadly, they all lose the initial strength of surface odor. I keep thinking of gathering the species and listing a table of attributes, fragrance, and structural characteristics. But it is just too much to think about. Western Red Cedar on the Coast is different from Interior sources. Alaskan Yellow Cedar stinks. the best analogy I have is dirty socks. And some say 'potatoes going bad'. The botanists keep renaming AYC, so take your pick of which latinese to use.
I haven't touched on Redwood, and Sequoia here. They have no scent. I salvaged a picnic table made of it (one or the other) that was old, very old, when I met my future wife in 1978. Some of the non-US durable woods can crop up in tables, too. And, fragrance can be stuck to the finish used more than native wood smell. I have some beautiful Incense Cedar (Calocedrus) that has no fragrance. My latest 'cedar' is Japanese Cedar (Cryptomeria). It smells like wintergreen. I even have the tree in my yard and I never knew. To me it is one of the worst pulmonary irritants, and yes, I give the tree a wide berth. I salvaged a bunch of cypress fencing when I rebuilt a side yard fence. Quite a lot like WRC but no fragrance.
I think the Wood Database is your best source of reference. However, the WRC in the link is vertical grain old growth; or, incense cedar (Calocedrus) which I would vote for probably. Scratch-n-sniff.
Heirlooms are self-important fiction so build what you like. Someone may find it useful.
