296 LANDSCAPE GAIlDENING. 



The Cedar of Lebanon Tree. Cedrus. 

 Nat. Ord. Conifers. Lin. Syst. Monoecia, Monadelphia. 



The Cedar of Lebanon is universally admitted by 

 European authors to be the noblest evergreen tree of 

 the old world. Its native sites are the elevated valleys 

 and ridges of Mount Lebanon and the neighboring heights 

 of the lofty groups of Asia Minor. There it once covered 

 immense forests, but it is supposed these have never 

 recovered from the inroads made upon them by the forty 

 score thousand hewers employed by Solomon to procure 

 the timber for the erection of the Temple. Modern 

 travellers speak of them as greatly diminished in number, 

 though there are still specimens measuring thirty-six feet 

 in circumference. Mount Lebanon is inhabited by nu- 

 merous Maronite Christians, who hold annually a 

 celebration of the Transfiguration under the shade of 

 the existing trees, which they call the " Feast of Cedars.'^ 



The Cedar of Lebanon is nearly related to the Larch, 

 having its leaves collected in parcels like that tree, but 

 differs widely in the circumstance of its foliage being 

 evergreen. It is remarkable for the wide extension of its 

 branches, and the immense surface covered by its 

 overshadowing canopy of foliage. In the sacred writings 

 it is often alluded to as an emblem of great strength, beauty, 

 and duration. " Behold the Assyrian was a Cedar in 

 Lebanon, with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, 

 and of an high stature ; and his top was among the thick 

 boughs. His boughs were multiplied, and his branches 

 became long. The fir trees were not like his boughs, nor 



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