THE CEDAR OF LEBANON 



The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; 

 he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 



Psalm XCII, 12 



ERNEST H. WILSON, Assistant Director, Arnold Arboretum 



Magnificent in their Solitary Glory on the Hills of Palestine these Last Remnants of the Forests of 

 Biblical Times Speak Eloquently of the Changes in the Life of Peoples and Give a Glimpse 

 Behind the Veil of Forgotten History. A Hardy Type Successfully Established in America. 



Editor's Note: This is the third in a continued series on "The Romance of our Trees," dealing with different types that 

 have been intimately connected with the developments of peoples from the earliest times. Next month's subject is " The Yews." 



[HE Holy Land has undergone many changes and 

 vicissitudes from early biblical times down to its 

 deliverance from the Turks by General Allenby in 

 October, 1918. The very aspect of the country has 

 changed enormously in the few thousand years of its record 

 as set forth in the Holy Scriptures. More than skies and 

 clouds, more than villages or hills, more than sentient 

 creatures of high or low degree, the trees, shrubs and herbs 

 of a land give character to its scenery; impressing the mind 

 by their grandeur, or charming it by their beauty. De- 

 nuded of its vegetable growth the very skeleton of a country 

 changes and decays; even the skies and clouds are altered. 

 How great the changes that have taken place in Palestine we 

 can but faintly imagine, but many of the trees mentioned in 

 the Bible still grow there though in much less abundance. On 

 Lebanon grow the Cedars in all their pristine majesty, but 

 vastly fewer in number than in the days when Balaam com- 

 pared the far-stretching encampments of the Israelite tribes 

 in the Jordan valley to "cedar trees beside the waters" 

 (Numbers XX I V:6). 



Whether the word cedar in the Old Testament applies 

 to one or many kinds of trees may be left to the Biblical critics 

 and Hebraists, but there is ample and unmistakable proof 

 that the Cedar of Lebanon was well known to the Prophets 

 and other teachers of the old Hebrews, and by their poets, 

 as every Bible reader knows, the forests of Cedar of Lebanon 

 were regarded with sacred awe. They were the type of power 

 and majesty, of grandeur and beauty, of strength and per- 

 manence; as "trees of Jehovah planted by His right hand 

 crowning the Great Mountains"; masterpieces in lofty 

 stature, wide spreading shade, perpetual verdure, refreshing 

 perfume, and unfailing fruitfulness. Some of the finest 

 imagery in the Old Testament Song is drawn from this oft- 

 frequented source. The mighty conquerors of olden days, 

 the despots of Assyria, the Pharaohs of Egypt, the proud and 

 idolatrous monarchs of Judah, the Hebrew commonwealth it- 

 self, the warlike Amorites of patriarchal times, and the moral 

 majesty of the Messianic age, are all compared to the tower- 

 ing Cedar in its regal loftiness and supremacy. Its huge 

 trunks, massive branches, great height, wide spreading, 

 tabular, densely umbrageous crown, dark green at all seasons, 

 are so well known that they have been condensed into the 

 phrase "cedar-like" in common use to-day by writers who 

 wish to portray the general aspect of certain trees. Further 



the color, character, and peculiar fragrance of the wood fre- 

 quently mentioned by Old Testament writers led, both in 

 ancient and modern times, to the name "cedar" being given 

 wide application. To-day it is applied to a variety of trees, 

 some closely and others very remotely related to the true 

 Cedars. In fact now-a-days its use is far too ambiguous and 

 connotes little besides character of wood and perhaps fra- 

 grance. 



In modern times many distinguished travellers and men 

 of science have visited the Cedar of Lebanon in its home and 

 their story, old yet ever new, has been written over and over 

 again. A Frenchman, Pierre Belon, author of " De Arbori- 

 bus Conifers," published in 1553 (and the first treatise on 

 Conifers ever written), ascended Mt. Lebanon in 1550 and 

 visited the Monastery of the Virgin Mary, situated in a valley 

 below a grove of Cedar trees where the festival of the Trans- 

 figuration was held. Then as now this and other groves be- 

 longed to the Patriarch of the Maronites — a Christian sect 

 inhabiting Mt. Lebanon. Belon states that after celebrating 

 high mass upon an altar erected under one of the largest trees, 

 said to have been planted by King Solomon, the Patriarch 

 threatened with ecclesiastical censure those who presume to 

 hurt or diminish the Cedars now remaining. Since Belon's 

 time many travellers have visited the Cedars on Mt. Le- 

 banon, the most experienced of all being the late Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, the eminent English botanist, who was there in the 

 autumn of i860. Sir Joseph's visit was for the special pur- 

 pose of examining the Cedar groves and in the Natural His- 

 tory Review of January, 1862, he published a most interesting 

 account. 



The elevation of Mt. Lebanon was found to be 10,200 feet 

 and that of the Kedisha valley where the trees are now grow- 

 ing 6,200 feet. The whole of this area of Mt. Lebanon is, to 

 quote the article, "a confused mass of ancient moraines which 

 have been deposited by glaciers that, under very different 

 conditions of climate, once filled the basin above them and 

 communicated with perpetual snow which then covered the 

 whole summit. The rills from the surrounding heights col- 

 lect to form one stream and the Cedars grow on that portion 

 of the moraine which immediately borders the stream, and 

 nowhere else. They form one group about four hundred 

 yards in diameter with an outstanding tree or two not far 

 from the rest, and appear as a black speck in the great area 

 of the corry and its moraines which contain no other arbore- 



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