CEDRUS LIBANI 
far they occupy their old ground, and, where we find them on the decrease, to inquire as to what 
cause that is to be attributed. 
Present Range of 
the Cedar. 
The Cedar of Lebanon is found at various places in the mountain range of that name, and also in vast 
forests in the Boulgar dagh chain of the Taurus in Asia Minor, and thence westwards along the Taurus 
range to east long. 36°; eastwards to Pisidia in east long. 32 0 ; and northwards to the 
Anti-Taurus range in north lat. 38°: in all these growing at an altitude of from 4000 to 
6333 feet above the sea. All these localities are parts of the same range of mountains, or 
offshoots from it. Pierre Belon, a French botanist from Mans (designated in the learned affectation of his 
time as Bellonius or Bellonius Cenomanus ), is the first author on whose knowledge we can depend, who 
announced the occurrence of the Cedar beyond the limits of Mount Lebanon. He travelled in the Levant 
from 1547 to 1550; and, what gives him an especial interest in our eyes, 
he wrote a very fair scientific treatise on Conifers. He reported that 
he had seen forests of Cedar in Asia Minor, upon Mount Taurus, and 
Mount Aman. 
“We found on Mount Amanus as lofty Cedars as on Mount Lebanon.We 
found on Mount Taurus lofty Cedars the same as those on Mount Lebanon, of which some of our 
company at my suggestion furnished themselves with the apples, which are somewhat like the 
apples of the Fir, but larger and smooth, and facing the sky [erect]. Now, not wishing to waste 
time in describing this tree, we have preferred to give a portrait of it (fig. 28) to shew it [in which, 
however, the cones are pendulous]. There is such a great quantity of Cedars on the slopes of 
Mount Taurus, that we see no other trees so common.” (“ Les Observations de Plusieurs Sin- 
gularites, &c., trouvees en Grec6, en Asi6, &c.,” par Pierre Belon, p. 360 and 370, 1588.) 
Belon also says that he was told it was found on the mountains 
above Nicea. 
La Roque, in 1722 (“Voyage de Syrie et du Mont Libani,” i., 
p. 86), says that it is reported that in former times it was abundant in 
Cyprus, but that in two voyages which he had made to that island, he 
had never met with any one who pretended to have met with them 
there. It might have been the Cypress which formerly abounded. At 
all events, it was not until more than a century and a half after La Roque wrote that we find any notice of 
the Cedar of Lebanon existing in Cyprus. Its presence there, which was certainly unsuspected, was made 
known to the Linnean Society in 1879, as already stated at page 6. 
Pierre de Tchihatcheff, a Russian naturalist, who explored Asia Minor, thus describes the forests 
on Mount Taurus :— 
Fiar. 28. 
“ I n following the southern slopes of the Boulgardagh, I was struck by the fine forests of Cedars which mount even to the upper regions of 
this majestic rampart. I had at first supposed that it was only a local, although very interesting phenomenon ; but, on ascending the Zamantau- 
Sau, from Saihoun, where it debouches, I had the happiness to traverse for several successive days, the finest forests of Cedar which are perhaps 
known at the present day, so that the band which, on my botanical map of Asia Minor, marks the domain of the Cedar, may extend from 140 to 
160 miles from the south-west to the north-east. Until now, botanists have been wont to make pious pilgrimages to the celebrated Cedars of 
Mount Lebanon, and I myself had also been led fifteen years ago to contemplate with profound emotion the ten or twelve centenarian trunks 
which raised themselves in isolation on that classic ground; but now they appear to me very trifling before the fine forests which I have just 
traversed, and alongside of which they figure only like our hothouse Palm-trees when compared to the Palm-trees of the forests of the tropics.” 
{Ann. des l’Acad, de Sciences, vol. xviii., p. 759.) 
In his “ Asie Mineure,” M. de Tchihatcheff specifies, in more detail, the exact localities where he met 
with the Cedar in the Taurus and Anti-Taurus range. These were: (i.) in Trachean Cilicia, on the 
Topgedik dagh, or mountain, at an elevation of 6000 feet above the sea; (2.) on the southern slope of the 
Boulgar dagh, at almost 9000 feet height; (3.) in the Anti-Taurus, between Sarkantyoglon and Tchedeme, 
associated with the Abies Cilicica and Junifier us excels a, at an altitude of 4100 feet; (4.) between Feke and 
Hadjin ; and (5.) between that last town and Gueksin, at 3600 feet. Gueksin (which lies at the eastern foot 
of the Anti-Taurus range) is the most eastern point where he observed the Cedar in Cataowa, and he says 
that he is ignorant whether it passes from thence into Armenia, “ which it may perhaps be permitted to 
doubt.” (Tchihatcheff, “Asie Mineure,” 2d part, p. 308, 1856.) 
These 
