see it clearly

Lebanon Cedar Tree

Some trees may be said to be familiar from their literary associations. This is pre-eminently true of such trees of Holy Writ as the Cedar of Lebanon, the Olive, and the Weeping Willow.

The origin of the name Cedar is somewhat doubtful; but it is probably a Semitic word allied to the Arabic "kedre," meaning "power." But, though so frequently mentioned in the Bible, in classical writers, and by early travelers, the tree itself was certainly not brought to England before the latter part of the seventeenth century.

The genus Cedrus belongs to that section of the order Coniferae known as Abietinae. Like most Abietinae, its branches are given off in whorls. It is mainly distinguished from the closely-allied genus Larix, the Larches, by its leaves being evergreen, they being, as in that genus, grouped in tufts, or "fascicled." The other leading characteristics of the genus are the erect position of its cones and the deciduous character of their scales.

The Cedars are a very small group, only three species being recognized, and these entirely confined to the Old World; but many other trees with somewhat similar wood are popularly known as Cedars in many quarters of the globe. The three true Cedars--the Deodar (Cedrus deodara) of the Himalayas and Hindoo Koosh, the Lebanon Cedar (C. libani), with its small-leaved variety in Cyprus, and the Mount Atlas Cedar (C. atlantica)--are so closely allied as to be by some regarded as merely geographical races of one species. As all three are now common in cultivation it will readily be noticed that at different ages each kind nearly resembles the others; and when grown from seed the Lebanon Cedar varies considerably, its branches either drooping or rising in a fastigiated manner. The main distinctions between the three are, however, that the Deodar has drooping branches and silvery foliage, the Lebanon Cedar has its branches horizontal and its mature foliage of a dark and somewhat blue green, whilst the Mount Atlas Cedar has ascending branches and needles of a more yellow shade of green.

The most striking characters of the Lebanon Cedar are the numerous large and wide-spreading horizontal branches and the broad and flattened summit of the full-grown tree. When young, one or two leading branches rise above the rest; but the mature form is known to nurserymen as "clump-headed." These points, together with the fact that the Cedar grows best in a deep soil, where its roots have access to water, are most graphically presented to us in the grand passage in the Book of Ezekiel, the most striking of the many Biblical allusions to this tree:--

"Behold the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high, with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters. . . . Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches, for his root was by great waters . . . nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty."

The rich brown bark of the gradually tapering stem becomes deeply scored with age, and contrasts well with the level layers of dark foliage. Though the tree seldom exceeds eighty feet in height, its massive branches often spread from thirty to fifty feet on all sides, the lower ones resting upon the ground, though not rooting in it, thus forming a broad-based pyramid densely clothed with leaves. The horizontal lines of its upper boughs give it, in common with the Stone Pine, an architectural character harmonizing with the columns and straight copings of classical buildings. This was noticed by Martin, who is fond of introducing the Cedar into his pictures, particularly into those of the terrace-gardens of Babylon and Nineveh.

Its stately outline and somewhat somber hue equally entitle the Cedar--alone perhaps among our larger trees--to a position on the trim lawn, or near the stone urns or vases of the balustraded terrace of a red-brick mansion in the style of the last century.

The dwarf shoots that bear the tufted leaves continue to do so each spring for several years with hardly any lengthening, and ultimately terminate either in a pollen-bearing catkin or a cone. The leaves are straight, nearly cylindrical, but tapering towards their points, and about an inch long, and they remain two years on the tree. On falling, they do not decay for several years, so that a layer of leaf-mould has been observed half-an-inch in depth under a plantation fifteen years old, whilst that under the Cedars on Mount Lebanon is a foot thick.

The Cedar grows rapidly, making annual rings from an eighth to half an inch across; but its wood is spongy, very apt to shrink and warp, and by no means durable. It is of a reddish color and less resinous than that of the Larch. In its mountain home, however, the Cedar grows more slowly and forms a better wood, so that there seems no sufficient reason for doubting that the wood used for Solomon's Temple and palace was that of this tree. It is more doubtful, however, whether Virgil and other classical writers are alluding to the wood of what we now call the Cedar when they speak of it as being incorruptible, and therefore used for statues of the gods. The Romans certainly believed in the preservative character of the resin which exudes from wounds in the Cedar, and which they called "Cedria." This was used to protect papyri from the attacks of worms, and is stated to have preserved the books of Numa uninjured in his tomb for five centuries after his death.

The tree seldom flowers until it is five-and-twenty or thirty years old; and it is characteristic that both inflorescences turn upwards. The reddish catkins are about two inches long, but the cones, after fertilization, become four or five inches in length. When young and green these latter have a pinkish or plum-colored bloom, which however, they soon lose, becoming a rich brown. The scales of the cone are very broad and tough, though thin, and each of them bears two broadly-winged seeds. Resin exudes from the cones, and after some years the scales fall away from the axis. Squirrels are fond of the seeds, but the Cedar is singularly free from the attacks either of insects or of fungal diseases.

The Cedars on Mount Lebanon have been frequently visited by travelers since the middle of the sixteenth century. Lamartine writes of them:--

"These trees are the most renowned natural monuments in the world: religion, poetry, and history have all equally celebrated them. The Arabs of all sects entertain a traditional veneration for them. They attribute to them not only a vegetative power, which enables them to live eternally, but also an intelligence, which causes them to manifest signs of wisdom and foresight similar to those of instinct and reason in man. They are said to understand the changes of the seasons; they stir their vast branches as if they were limbs; they spread out or contract their boughs, inclining them towards heaven or towards earth, according as the snow prepares to fall or to melt."

This is the tradition to which Southey alludes in "Thalaba," when he says:

"Its broad round-spreading branches, when they felt
The snow, rose upward in a point to heaven,
And, standing in their strength erect,
Defied the baffled storm."

The mountain is covered with snow during a great part of the year; but on August 5th, the eve of the Feast of the Transfiguration, the Maronites from the surrounding villages have long been in the habit of visiting the mountain, and there celebrating the "Feast of Cedars" with singing and dancing, mass being celebrated on the following day at one of the stone altars which stand beneath several of the larger trees. Most of the Cedars show signs of having been frequently struck by lightning.

There are naturally many legends connected with so interesting a tree. One of the most remarkable relates that Seth, sent by Adam to Paradise for the oil of mercy, saw, from the gate of the garden which he was not permitted to enter, a leafless Cedar with branches borne high towards heaven, on which was seated a child in glittering raiment. The angel-guardian of the garden gave him three seeds from the tree, which, on his return, he placed in the mouth of his parent, who was then dead. From these seeds there sprang, on the grave of Adam in Hebron, a Cedar, a Pine, and a Cypress, which united into one gigantic tree. After being carefully protected by Abraham, Moses, and David, this tree was felled by Solomon to form a beam in the temple; but his carpenters, finding it impossible to shape it as they wished, laid it aside, and, after forming a bridge over the brook Kedron, and being thrown into the Pool of Bethesda, to which it imparted its healing virtues, it ultimately formed the wood of the Cross.

The Cedar is not difficult to raise from seed, nor is it at all exacting in the matter of soil; but unfortunately, in spite of Arab tradition, it suffers great damage from the accumulation of snow on the flat fan-like expansions of its evergreen branches.