180 



The Garden Magazine, December, 1919 



Northern Syria and Asia Minor form 

 one botanical province, so that the 

 Lebanon groves though so widely dis- 

 connected from the Taurus forests can 

 be regarded in no other light than as 

 outlying members of the latter. Sir 

 Joseph Hooker, in the paper already 

 referred to, suggests that in pre-historic 

 times the Cedar forests occupied much 

 lower levels and were continuous. He 

 adduces geological evidence to prove 

 that vast changes took place in the 

 Mediterranean basin during Tertiary 

 time, and shows that in the warm pe- 

 riod which followed the glacial epoch, 

 the vegetation of the lower levels was 

 forced to seek colder situations and so 

 migrated northward and up the moun- 

 tains. This would bring about the geo- 

 graphical isolations of the Cedar; and 

 the differences now apparent between 

 the four species are merely variations 

 fixed and accentuated through time. 



N' 



CEDAR OF LEBANON AT FLUSHING, NEW YORK 



This is one of several remarkable specimens of unusual trees to be found in this old-time nursery centre 



of America. Not unlike the mature White Pine in layer effect of its branches. Cedar of Lebanon may 



be confused with the Pine by the casual observer. (This specimen is 50 feet high; girth 20 feet) 



leaves are quite short and the cones are smaller than those of 

 the Atlas Cedar. Seeds were sent to Kew from Cyprus in 

 1 88 1 but the trees have grown slowly. It is unknown in this 

 country but in all probability would thrive in parts of Cali- 

 fornia. 



Eastward from Mt. Lebanon some 1,400 miles are the Deo- 

 dar Cedar forests of Afghanistan which extend continuously 

 eastward on the Himalayas almost to the confines of Nepal. 

 This Cedar (C. deodara) is in India exclusively a western tree; 

 it begins where the influence of the monsoon is much dimin- 

 ished, that is where the climate begins to approximate that 

 of the Levant. Its altitudinal range is between 3,500 and 

 10,000 feet and from 6,000 to 8,000 feet and it grows gre- 

 gariously but never forms pure forests. The leading shoots 

 and the ends of the branches are more pendulous and the 

 leaves longer than those of the Cedar of Lebanon; the cones 

 are the same size but the cone scales and seeds are of the same 

 form as those of the Atlas Cedar. 



These four Cedars, differing but slightly one from an- 

 other yet occupying five distinct geographical areas, pre- 

 sent a most interesting problem in plant distribution. 



OW the Cedars, though not so 

 ancient as the Ginkgo, are an old 

 type of tree life. Fossil remains of the 

 ancestors of the present race have been 

 found in the Lower Greensand of south 

 England around Maidstone and Folke- 

 stone in Kent and at Shanklin in the 

 Isle of Wight. This Lower Greensand 

 underlies Chalk and belongs to the 

 Cretaceous or Chalk Age, a geological 

 era remarkably prolific in animal life. 

 In this period birds very probably first 

 appeared, and the Terrible Lizards of 

 the Reptilian Age disappeared; but a 

 race of extraordinary, serpent-like 

 reptiles (Mosasaurus) flourished. 

 These were long snake-like animals with pointed teeth and 

 furnished with swimming paddles and a long and powerful 

 tail. One species of these terrible creatures of which fossil 

 remains have been unearthed in this country is estimated 

 to have been from 75 to 80 feet in length! The mammals of 

 this epoch were apparently marsupials like those of Austra- 

 lia to-day. But the important fact from the viewpoint of the 

 Cedars is that Cretaceous rocks agreeing in their lithological 

 and paleontological facies occur in all the alpine ranges from 

 Provence to Dalmatia, in the Atlas Mountains, in Syria, 

 Palestine, Arabia, Persia, the Caucasus and the western 

 Himalayas. The Libyan Desert of North Africa is also 

 floored by Cretaceous rocks apparently of the same age 

 though of a different lithological character. 



In the Tertiary period which succeeded the Cretaceous 

 epoch doubtless Cedar forests composed of one species were 

 more or less continuous on the mountain ranges throughout 

 the Mediterranean basin and Asia Minor to the western 

 Himalayas. Owing to the tremendous depressions and 

 elevations for which this epoch is remarkable the continuity 

 was broken. During the era of glaciation which ushered in 



