92 FAMILIAR TREES 



mountain home, however, the Cedar grows more 

 slowly and forms a better wood, so that there seems no 

 sufficient reason for doubting that the wood used for 

 Solomon's Temple and palace was that of this tree. 

 It is more doubtful, however, whether Virgil and other 

 classical writers are alluding to the wood of what we 

 now call the Cedar when they speak of it as being in- 

 corruptible and therefore used for statues of the gods. 

 The Ropaans certainly believed in the preservative 

 character of the resin which exudes from wounds in 

 the Cedar, and which they called " Cedria." This was 

 used to protect papyri from the attacks of worms, and 

 is stated to have preserved the books of Numa 

 uninjured in his tomb for five centuries after his 

 death. 



The tree seldom flowers until it is five-and- twenty 

 or thirty years old ; and it is characteristic that both 

 inflorescences turn upwards. The reddish catkins 

 are about two inches long, but the cones, after fertilis- 

 ation, become four or five inches in length. When 

 young and green these latter have a pinkish or plum- 

 coloured bloom, which, however, they soon lose, be- 

 coming a rich brown. The scales of the cone are very 

 broad and tough, though thin, and each of them bears 

 two broadly-winged seeds. ^ Resin exudes from the 

 cones, and after some years the scales fall away from 

 the axis. Squirrels are fond of the seeds, but the 

 Cedar is singularly free from the attacks either of 

 insects or of fungal diseases. 



The Cedars on Mount Lebanon have been fre- 

 quently visited by travellers since the middle of the 

 sixteenth century.. Lamartine writes of them : — 



