May 21, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



247 



build fires about the trees ; and, what is still more serious, 

 young plants are not growing up, as the goats destroy them as 

 soon as they appear. 



If the student of the Bible deplores the approaching loss of 

 these, the most touching monuments of antiquity, the botanist 

 and the forester may find at least this consolation, that the 

 Cedar is found on other mountain ranges, so that a speedy ex- 

 termination of the race is not probable. Vast forests of the 

 true Cedar of Lebanon exist, at an elevation of from 4,000 to 

 6,000 feet, on the immense masses of mountains which extend 

 all along the coast of Cilicia. It was Kotschy who discovered 

 and described these great forests of Cedars (see his charming 

 work entitled " A Journey to the Taurus of Cilicia," published 

 in 1858). In reality, thestation of the Cedar on Mount Lebanon 

 is only the most southern outpost of the species, while the 

 centre of its distribution and its real home is in Cilicia, where 

 it is found in the greatest abundance, and where it reproduces 

 itself vigorously. But to really comprehend the geographical 

 distribution of this splendid tree one must look to the western 

 and the driest part of the Himalaya Mountains, where is found 

 that conifer known from the time of the most ancient Indian 

 antiquity under the name of "Deodar" or "Wood of the 

 Gods," the Cedrus Deodara of botanists. It is not surprising 

 that this wonderful plant has been mistaken for a distinct spe- 

 cies. It is a much larger tree, and its habit, although not un- 

 like that of the Cedar of Lebanon, differs from it in its slender 

 young shoots and in its larger and longer cones. In the oppo- 

 site direction, another tree, very much like the Cedar of 

 Lebanon, has been discovered in the Atlas Mountains of 

 Algeria ; but in the case of this tree all its parts are smaller 

 than those of the tree of Mount Lebanon. The more the 

 mountain chains, which extend from the frontier of Tunis in 

 a double rank through northern Africa to the boundary of 

 Morocco, are explored, the more widely distributed this beau- 

 tiful tree is found to be. Manetti has given to the African 

 Cedar the name of Cedrus Atlantica, but a critical study of 

 these three trees has shown Sir Joseph Hooker that they are 

 not really three species, but simply three varieties, or rather 

 races, of the same species, as it is principally the dimensions 

 of individuals, and not essential differences, which distin- 

 guish them. 



The race of the Himalaya, in conformity with the immensity 

 of that mountain system, where all vegetable forms assume 

 an extraordinary size, is the largest. The race of the Taurus 

 and of the Lebanon occupies an intermediate position, while 

 that of Mount Atlas is the smallest, on account of the dryness 

 of the severe climate of the region. The remarkable 

 dimorphism, even, which appears among trees with dark 

 green foliage, and others with silvery gray foliage mixed to- 

 gether in the same wood, is found in these three stations, in 

 the Himalaya as in the Taurus and in the mountains of 

 Blidah. This dimorphism is known to gardeners, as it is 

 seen frequently in cultivated plants of the three varieties now 

 widely distributed in the gardens of southern Europe. 



I had the good fortune, in a recent journey, to penetrate to 

 the region occupied by the African, Cedar and to cross it at dif- 

 ferent points, and it seems to me that it might be interesting 

 for the readers in the New World to learn a few details of a 

 plant of the Old World which every reader of the Bible knows 

 and has venerated from childhood. I need not recall the fact 

 that it is the tree celebrated by Isaiah, and by David in the 

 Psalms, that it is the tree that Solomon used for the construc- 

 tion of the temple, and Ezra used to finish the second temple ; 

 the tree which David used to build his palace, and which served 

 the Hebrews for the masts to their vessels, and for the idols 

 which this people, so often rebellious, erected, and which 

 attracted to them the paternal punishments of God. I will 

 merely add, however, that there are learned and competent 

 students who suspect, at least, that in one or the other of the 

 references of the Bible there is room for doubt, and that they 

 do not refer to the true Cedar, but rather to the wood of the 

 Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens). Indeed the wood of this tree, 

 which still inhabits the valleys of the Lebanon in the imme- 

 diate neighborhood of the Cedars, as in the valley of Kadischa, 

 forming there dense forests, is more valuable than that of the 

 Cedar both for construction and for the cabinet-maker. The 

 wood of the true Cedar is whitish, rather soft, not very dura- 

 ble, and not odoriferous, while that of the Cypress is very hard, 

 durable, very resinous, and of a handsome brown color, and 

 in every way superior to that of the other tree. 



I saw the Cedar for the first time in the Atlas of Beni Salah, 

 which forms the principal part of the chain immediately be- 

 hind the pretty town of Blidah, which is surrounded as far as 

 the eye can reach by forests of Orange-trees, whence come in 

 the months of December and January mandarins, which are 



now beginning to take the place of all other varieties of 

 the Orange. 



We ascend with the aid of mules and Arab guides behind 

 the town during five hours — for it is necessary in order to visit 

 the Cedars to reach an elevation of nearly 2,000 feet, while 

 Blidah is only a few feet above the level of the sea. We pass 

 through Arab fields surrounded with masses of Cactus {Opun- 

 tia Ficus-Indica) fifteen or twenty feet high, and covered with 

 the graceful Clematis cirrhosa, which, in January, was in full 

 flower. Fig-trees without leaves, the great Caroubiers (Cero- 

 tania Siliqua), the Zisyphus Lotus, and a number of shrubs 

 with shining evergreen leaves, grow on the sides of the road, 

 with here and there an occasional plant of Chamarops humilis, 

 which is the despair of the agriculturist of the country be- 

 cause it is impossible to exterminate its strong roots without 

 the aid of a dynamite cartridge. We ascend rapidly ; culti- 

 vated fields come to an end, and the naked flanks of the moun- 

 tains, worn by the torrents of spring and deeply gullied, begin 

 to fatigue our animals. We encounter at 3,500 feet thick 

 clumps of the Oak, known to the Arabs under the name of 

 " Ballus," the Quercus Ballota with thick, tufted, dark gray 

 foliage resembling that of the Live Oaks of the southern 

 United States. The large acorns are sold in the market of 

 Blidah. They are not bitter, although rather astringent for a 

 cultivated taste. We soon leave these Oaks behind. Chest- 

 nut-trees, although not indigenous, grow here vigorously, as 

 do several shrubs of Europe, like the Ilex Aquifolinm, the 

 Ruscus aculeatus and the Prunas avium. 



A little further and we reach the Cedars, which hereafter 

 cover all the slope with an imposing solemn forest, which we 

 admire in silence. They are, for the most part, ancient trees 

 many centuries old, but there are also many young trees 

 which form impenetrable thickets. Under the old trees 

 the ground is open and hard, resounding like iron, for it 

 is still frozen, and here and there are patches of snow. 

 It is impossible to imagine anything more beautiful or more 

 touching than these great trees standing in their silent 

 majesty. The trunks have a diameter of four and a half to 

 six feet, springing from roots twisting about like serpents; 

 the bark is thick, channeled, dark brown. The trunk sep- 

 arates generally at the height of a man into vigorous,, horizontal 

 branches. This horizontal direction of the branches is re- 

 peated to the top of the trees, so that they consist of a series 

 of flat stages covered with thick, intense verdure, but dimin- 

 ishing near the top, which ends in a thin, upright leader. Upon 

 these branches the cones appear in great quantity. They are 

 very beautiful, of a clear brown color, and covered with drops 

 of white resin. The cones are just ripe, although the scales 

 are still closed. A month later they drop, leaving the central 

 axis, which remains on the branches for a long time. The 

 leaves are short, very close together, entirely covering the 

 branches, dark green on both surfaces, although on certain in- 

 dividuals they are silvery white, the contrast of color making 

 an effect of surprising beauty. The height of these trees is 

 not great, the highest, I should think, not exceeding 60 to 75 

 feet, but solidity and strength are expressed to a su- 

 preme degree in their habit. An examination of this forest 

 shows, to our surprise, the Taxus baccata, the Crat&gus Aria, 

 the Euonymus latifolins, a great Juniper probably undescribed, 

 not unlike Juniperus Oxyccdrus, Quercus Mirbeckii, an ever- 

 green species of the eastern Atlas, but rare in this region. It 

 is not uncommon to see immense trunks of the Cedars torn, 

 burned and whitened, either upright or prostrate on the ground. 

 These are the victims of lightning or of fires lighted by the Arab 

 shepherds, who like to set fire to a great tree to warm their hands. 



From the summit of Beni-Salah, which rises a little above 

 the last Cedars, and which is covered with a thick growth of 

 Bupleurum spinosum, we obtained a splendid view which will 

 rest always engraved in our memory. About us are the 

 rocks and the gorges of the Atlas covered with Cedars, while 

 developing at the right and left to a prodigious distance ex- 

 tend the ranges of the province of Oran as far as the great 

 pile of mountains to the east of Algiers, the Djurra, with its 

 heavy covering of snow. To the north stretches the great 

 undulating plain, dotted with innumerable towns and villages, 

 known as the " Metidg^a," and ending in the long maritime 

 chain surmounted with that gigantic monument called " the 

 tomb of the Christian," but which is, in reality, the mausoleum 

 of the dynasty of the ancient kings of Numidia, of the time 

 of Augustus and a little earlier ; beyond the beautiful Mediter- 

 ranean in its blue immensity appears at a distance of more 

 than 150 miles. But what a contrast the view to the south 

 presents ! Beyond the arid plateau of the interior is seen, 

 under a pure sky, the immense plain of the Algerian Sahara, 

 another sea, but a sea of sand and of stone. 



