The indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest constructed their homes, a plank house from the biodegradable cedar tree.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines longhouse as "a long communal dwelling, especially of certain Native American, Polynesian, and Indonesian peoples." The homes commonly called longhouses, with regard to the Pacific Northwest, are plank houses, not longhouses. A plank house may be long, and may be commonly referred to as a longhouse, but it is not a longhouse. The cladding and roofing are planks of cedar, thus plank house.