Cedar

Scientific

Genus Cedrus in family Pinaceae. Four species, sometimes treated as three with the Cyprus form as a subspecies:

• Cedrus libani — Cedar of Lebanon. Native to mountains of Lebanon, western Syria, and southern Turkey. Massive flat-topped crown at maturity.
• Cedrus atlantica — Atlas cedar. Native to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria. Bluer needles than Lebanon cedar; widely planted as an ornamental.
• Cedrus deodara — Deodar / Himalayan cedar. Native to the western Himalaya from Afghanistan through northern Pakistan and northwest India into western Nepal. Pendulous branchlets; the largest of the cedars.
• Cedrus brevifolia — Cyprus cedar. Endemic to the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus; sometimes treated as a subspecies of C. libani.

True cedars have whorled needles on short shoots, large upright barrel-shaped cones that disintegrate on the tree at maturity, and a strongly aromatic durable wood rich in thujone, cedrol, and related terpenes — the source of the wood’s distinctive scent and its natural rot-resistance and insect-repellence.

Note on “cedar” naming. Many unrelated North American conifers are called “cedar” — Western red cedar (Thuja plicata), Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), Alaska yellow cedar, Northern white cedar — none of which are true Cedrus. These are commercially and culturally significant trees in their own right but botanically separate.

Cultural

The Cedar of Lebanon is one of the most culturally weighted trees in human history. The Epic of Gilgamesh opens with the hero’s journey to the Cedar Forest. Phoenician shipbuilding, the temples of Solomon (1 Kings 5–6) and of Artemis at Ephesus, the funerary boats of pharaonic Egypt, and the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar all drew on Lebanon’s cedars. By Roman times the forests were already depleted by millennia of harvest; today only small reserves remain at Bsharri, Tannourine, and a handful of other Lebanese sites. The cedar appears on the Lebanese flag.

The deodar (Cedrus deodara) is sacred in Himalayan Hindu tradition — the name derives from Sanskrit devadāru, “wood of the gods” — and is closely associated with Shiva. Old deodar temples in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are themselves objects of pilgrimage. Deodar is the national tree of Pakistan.

Global presence

Native ranges are small and ecologically vulnerable. Atlas cedar and deodar are widely planted as ornamentals across temperate Europe, North America, and East Asia. Lebanon cedar plantings exist as conservation projects in Lebanon and Turkey. All four species face climate-change pressure on their native ranges — particularly the Lebanon and Cyprus cedars.

See also

Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.

• Shares approach with: [[pine]]
• Member of: [[plants]]

Sources

• IUCN Red List — Cedrus libani, C. atlantica, C. deodara
• Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture — cedar reserves
• Wikipedia — Cedrus

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A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].