THE CEDAR. 241 
C. Deodara {the Indian Cedar) is the most celebrated coni- 
ferous tree of the Himalayas, where it attains the height of 
150 feet, with a bole of thirty feet in girth; and it seldom 
falls far short of these dimensions. It is accounted sacred by 
the Hindus, and is generally met with in the neighbourhood 
of their ancient temples. It is found in Nepal, Kamaon, and 
Cashmere, at elevations ranging from 7000 to 12,000 feet. 
It was introduced into Britain in 1822. At Relick, in Inver- 
ness-shire, a plant is now forty-five years of age, having vege- 
tated there in the year the tree was introduced to this country. 
At the age of sixteen this plant stood seventeen feet high, and’ 
at one foot above the surface of the ground the girth of its 
trunk was two feet nine inches. Its present height is twenty- 
seven feet, and its girth five feet. It lost its top many years 
ago, and its upward growth has ever since been very slow. 
It is to be regretted that this casualty seems to prevail 
throughout the country with singular uniformity. The fine 
specimens of the tree in the grounds of Norman Macleod, 
Esquire, Dalvey, have to some extent suffered in the same 
way, by some of them being deprived of their tops at the 
time the tree attained to the height of: from fifteen to twenty 
feet. This bears a striking resemblance to the failure which 
often seizes some plantations of the larch, by the destruction 
of the top and a display of dead twigs just at the time when 
the tree assumes a timber size, and has begun to put on its 
greatest vigour. In every species of the Conifers there is a 
period in its growth at which it is more particularly tender 
and susceptible of injury by frost than at other times. This 
usually manifests itself in imported tender trees, such as the 
larch from foreign seed grown in a warm country, while those 
grown from British seed are exempt from the casualty ; thus 
showing in the following generation the influence of acclima- 
tization. We may therefore expect the next generation of 
the deodara from home-grown seed to be much hardier, and: 
exempt from the casualty referred to. 
Few seeds of the deodara have yet been produced in Britain. 
Its cones are of the size and shape of those of the cedar of 
Q 
