THE DEODAR. 



Cedrus deodara. 



The Deodar, Holy Cedar, or Himalayan Cedar, 

 is known to us only as an ornamental plant of 

 exquisitely beautiful outline and graceful spray, 

 giving an air of refinement to every lawn and 

 shrubbery to which it has been admitted ; but in 

 its native haunts it is a magnificent tree, of rapid 

 growth and enormous size, with the evergreen 

 beauty of the Cedar of Lebanon when living, 

 and affording when cut down, timber not simply 

 durable, but imperishable. No wonder, then, 

 that the untaught Hindoos should look on it 

 with reverence, giving it a name expressive of this 

 feeling, the gift of God," and in some districts 

 using its fragrant wood as a material for their 

 temples, and burning it as incense on occasions of 

 great ceremony. 



The leaves and cones are very like those of the 

 Cedar of Lebanon ; but the general habit of the 

 two trees is different in every stage of their growth. 

 When young, the Deodar resembles a luxuriant 

 Larch with a leafy base, but the branches ai^e more 

 delicate and thickly clothed with foliage, and the 

 extremities of all the shoots, even the leader, droop 

 most gracefully. What will be the appearance 

 of the full-grown tree in this climate it is impossible 

 to conjecture. If it succeeds, which it gives 

 every prospect of doing, it will prove one of the 

 most valuable additions that has ever been made 



