1058 ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANNICUM. 
Spec. Char., §c. Leaves tufted, perennial. Cones ovate, abrupt ; their scales 
close-pressed. Crest of the anthers ovate, flat, erect. (Smith.) | Cones 
ovate, from 3in. to 5in, long, and from 2 in. to 24in. broad. Seeds of an 
irregular triangular form ; nearly 4 in. long, with a very broad membrana- 
ceous wing. Cotyledons 6. A large, spreading evergreen, tree. Syria, on 
Mount Lebanon; and the North of Africa, on Mount Atlas. Height 50 ft. 
to 80 ft. Introduced before 1683. Flowers yellow ; May. Cones purplish 
brown, ripening in the autumn of the third year, and remaining on the 
tree for several years. 
Varieties. 
* C. L. 2 foliis argéntcis — Leaves of a silvery hue both above and below. 
There are very large trees of this variety at Whitton and Pain’s Hill, 
and a dwarf bushy one, remarkable for its silvery aspect, at the 
Countess of Shaftesbury’s villa (formerly the residence of Thomson 
the poet), on the banks of the Thames at Richmond, of which there 
is a portrait in Arb. Brit., Ist. edit., vol. viii. 
® ©. L. 3 ndna.—Very dwarf, A plant at Hendon Rectory, Middlesex, 
10 or 12 years old, is only from 2 ft. to 3 ft. high, making shoots 
from 2 in. to 3 in. in a year. 
The leading shoot, in young trees, generally inclines to one side, but it be- 
comes erect as the tree increases in height. The horizontal branches, or limbs, 
when the tree is exposed on every side, are very large in proportion to the 
trunk : they are disposed in distinct layers, or stages, and the distance to 
which they extend diminishes as they approach the top; thus forming a py- 
ramidal head, broad in proportion to its height. The extremities of the lower 
branches, in such trees, generally rest on the ground, bent down by their own 
weight ; but they do not root into it. The summit, in young trees, is spiry ; 
bat in old trees it becomes broad and flattened. When the cedar of Lebanon 
is drawn up among other trees, it pro- 
duces a clean straight trunk, differing 
only in appearance from that of the 
larch in the colour of its bark. The wood 
of the cedar is of a reddish white, light 
and spongy, easily worked, but very 
apt to shrink and warp, and by no means 
durable. The tree, as an ornamental 
object, is most magnificent ; uniting 
the grand with the picturesque, in a 
manner not equalled by any other tree 
in Britain, either indigenous or intro- 
duced. On a lawn, where the soil is good, the situation sheltered, and the 
space ample, it forms a gigantic pyramid, and confers dignity on the park and 
mansion to which it belongs ; and it makes an avenue of unrivalled grandeur, 
if the trees are so far apart as to allow their branches to extend on every side. 
If planted in masses, it is, like every other species of the pine and fir tribe, 
drawn up with a straight naked trunk, and scarcely differs in appearance from 
the larch, except in being evergreen. This is exemplified at Kenwood, at 
Claremont, and other places near London. On the other hand, where the 
cedar is planted in masses, and a distance of 50 or 60 feet allowed between 
each tree, nothing in the way of sylvan majesty can be more sublime than such 
a forest of living pyramids. This is exemplified around the cedar tower at 
Whitton, and on the cedar bank at Pepper Harrow. The cedar will grow in 
every soil and situation suitable for the larch. We are not certain that it will 
grow equally well with that tree at great elevations; though we have little 
doubt of it, provided it were planted in masses. In the neighbourhood of 
London, it has certainly attained the largest size in deep sandy soil, as at 
Syon, Whitton, and Pain’s Hill; but the sand at these places is not poor ; and 
at Whitton, where the tree has attained the greatest height and bulk, the 
1974. C. Libani. 
