THE CEDARS. 59 



Gen. CEDEUS. Unk. The Cedars. 



Flowers, moncecious, or male and female on the same plant, 

 but separate ; the male catkins solitary, cylindrical, erect, and 

 terminal, female ones somewhat oval and obtuse, solitary, very 

 rarely in twins, and erect. 



Gones, oval, obtuse at the ends, quite smooth, erect, and on 

 the upper side of the branches. 



Scales, very closely placed, rounded on the outer margins, 

 quite thin at the edges, leathery, smooth, and more or less 

 deciduous. 



Seeds, in twos under each scale, with a soft tegumental 

 covering, full of turpentine, more or less angular, and furnished 

 with a large persistent membranaceous wing. 



Seed-leaves, mostly nine in number. 



Leaves, needle-shaped, somewhat four-sided, stiff, persistent, 

 and disposed either in bundles or solitary. 



All splendid . evergreen trees, found either on Mount Leb- 

 anon, the North of India, or on the Barbary and Atlas Moun- 

 tains in Northern Africa. 



The word Cedar (Kedros of the Greeks) was not restricted 

 by the ancients to the Cedar of Lebanon, but probably derived 

 from the Ara'bic " Kedr,'' worth or value, or its derivative 

 " Kedrat," strength or power, in allusion to the value of the 

 wood. The Hebrew and Arabic names for the Cedar are 

 " Araz" or "Arz," and that of the Komans "Arar," all from 

 the Arabic root " Araza ;" " He was firm and stable, with roots 

 deeply fixed in the ground" (Qolius). Other writers derive the 

 name from " Kaio," to burn, and "Drio," to sweat or distil, a 

 kind of incense being obtained from the split wood, and burnt 

 as a substitute for it in the East ; Pliny also describes the pro- 

 cess of making " Oedria," from the cedar-wood, by distillation, 

 and afiirms its great value as a remedy for tooth- ache, for 

 which cure our modern creosote is therefore but an old remedy 

 revived. Again, others derive the name from Oedron, a brook 



