524 LXXVI. C0NIFEE7E. [Cedrus 



power of reproduction that if only a small branch is left on the stump of a fell 

 tree, numerous shoots grow up, which almost have the appearance of coppice 

 shoots. Unlike most other trees, the trees of the Pine tribe do not coppice 

 from a leafless stump ; but so great is the power of reproduction in the case of 

 the Deodar that the appearance is often deceptive, and indeed it has, though 

 I believe without sufficient data, been asserted that Deodar coppices like Oak, 

 Teak, and other leaf-bearing trees (Laubholzer, Bois feuillus). 



C. Libani, Barr. Syn. Pinus Cedrus, Linn., and C. atlantica, Manetti the 

 Lebanon and Atlas Cedars are so closely allied to the Deodar that it is not 

 possible to separate them by constant specific characters. This has been clearly 

 proved in Dr Hooker's important paper in the Natural History Review, 1862, 11, 

 on the Cedars of Lebanon, Taurus, Algeria, and India. Both have shorter leaves 

 than the Deodar, and the extremities of the branches are stiff and not drooping. 

 Under cultivation in England the three Cedars show each a peculiar habit of 

 growth, the Atlas Cedar being particularly distinguished by a stiff erect rigid 

 leader, and stiff spreading branches with short leaves. The foliage of the 

 Lebanon and Atlas Cedar is generally dark, that of the Deodar is often light 

 or bluish green, but there is a silvery variety both of the Atlas and Lebanon 

 Cedar, and, as mentioned above, Deodars with bluish foliage are not wanting, 

 though rare, in the N.W. Himalaya. Old trees of all three kinds when growing 

 isolated, particularly in exposed situations, are apt to form tabulated tops ; 

 and, on the other hand, where the Lebanon Cedar grows up crowded in 

 groups or compact masses, it forms tall and erect stems, like the Deodar in 

 the Himalaya. The male catkins, the cones, and seeds furnish no difference of 

 importance. At Kew the Deodar is the first to come out with a flush of young 

 leaves, the Lebanon Cedar follows a fortnight later, and the Atlas Cedar comes 

 last, after another interval of a few days. The early commencement of the 

 vegetation in the case of the Deodar explains its being less hardy on the conti- 

 nent of Europe than the Lebanon Cedar, which thrives well and attains a con- 

 siderable size all along the Rhine from Basle to Cologne. In central France 

 young trees often suffer from frost (Mathieu, Fl. For. 379). On their native 

 mountains all three Cedars have a distinctly marked heartwood, which is brown, 

 close-grained, and aromatic ; but the wood of trees planted in Western Europe 

 has a pale-reddish colour, is light, spongy, soft, and slightly aromatic. The 

 wood of the Lebanon Cedar grown in England weighs 30 lb., and Mathieu 

 quotes 29 lb. as the weight of wood grown at Nancy (age 19 years, diam. 11 in.), 

 while a piece of wood from the Atlas (age 88 years, diam. 7 in.) weighed 48 lb. 



In Western Europe the Lebanon Cedar has an extremely rapid growth. 

 Mathieu cites one, 125 years old, and 23 ft. girth at 6 ft. from the ground (Fl. 

 For. 381). Of the numerous instances of rapidly-grown Cedars in England, it 

 will suffice to quote a group at Bayfordbury, Herts, mentioned by Selby (British 

 Forest Trees, 539), of 12 or 14 trees, 90 years old, and measuring 10-14 ft. in girth 

 near the base. The Atlas Cedar grows on the higher mountains of Algeria, 

 where it forms extensive forests at an elevation between 4000 and 7000 ft. The 

 Lebanon Cedar is found in Asia Minor on the Anti-Taurus (lat. 40) between 

 3900 and 4200 ft., and, farther south, on the Taurus mountains, where it forms 

 (with Pinus Laricio) the upper forest region between 4000 and 6400 ft. up to 

 the limit of arborescent vegetation. It also occurs in the northern part of the 

 Lebanon chain, where Ehrenberg found it in forests of Oak ; and the last outpost 

 is that remarkable grove of about 400 trees, at the head of the Kedisha valley 

 (lat. 34 14'), which has been mentioned by many travellers, and which Hooker 

 has well described in the paper quoted above. The grove, measures about 400 

 yards in diameter, it stands in a broad shallow valley, drained by a feeder of the 

 Kedisha, which runs to the Mediterranean, at an elevation of about 6500 ft. 



us. 

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