CEDRUS LIBANI 
These localities are shewn in the sketch in our second Map-Plate relating to the geographical 
distribution of Cedars. In regard to the altitude at which it is found, he states that, “on the mountains 
which surround the Cilician Pyles, he had seen the Cedar form the upper limit of arborescent vegetation, 
and stop at about 6333 feet, while upon several points of the southern slope of that chain it reaches the 
altitude of 9000 feet.” (Id., 2d part, p. 300.) 
M. Kotchy’s Explorations in Cilicia (“ Reise in Cilischen Taurus,” 1858) have extended our 
knowledge of its range in Asia Minor, and confirmed the localities specified by M. de Tchihatcheff; 
and from the two we have compiled the Map of its distribution on Mount Taurus, and its branches given 
in our Map-Plate. 
In consequence of the occurrence of the Cedrus Atlantica on Mount Atlas, which until Manetti’s 
time was never doubted to be the same as the Cedar of Lebanon, Loudon imagined it to be probable 
that the range of the Cedar extended “ not only over the whole of that group of mountains, which is 
situated between Damascus and Tripoli in Syria, and which includes the Libanus and Mount Amanus 
and Taurus of antiquity, and various other mountains, but that its distribution on the mountainous 
t 
regions on the north of Africa is extensive, though of the botany of these latter regions scarcely anything 
is at present known.” So far as this seeks to supply a link or extension of the range between Lebanon 
and Mount Atlas, the idea is without foundation. So far as it anticipates an extended range to the 
north and south of Mount Lebanon, and between it and Mount Taurus, it is probably well founded. 
Pallas, Baudrillant, Delamarre, and other old authors, specify the Cedar as found in Siberia, in the 
countries between the Wolga and the Tobol, and on the Altai Mountains. This was shewn by 
M. Ferry (in a paper in the “ Bibliotheque Physico-Economique ”) and by M. Loiseleur to be an 
error, originating in the misapplication of the Russian word Kedr —which is the name for the Pinus 
Cembra —which was certainly the tree referred to by Pallas and the authors above mentioned. The 
same error has been repeated by eminent men in our own times. Sir Roderick Murchison, in his 
Presidential Address to the Royal Geographical Society, 1864, p. 41, says: “These regions are Siberia 
proper, to the southern limit of which the reindeer ranges, and in which the Siberian Cedar grows.” More 
recently Mr. Henry Lansdell, in his interesting work “Through Siberia,” 1882 (vol. i. 149, and ii. 190 
and 260), mentions the Cedar as growing north of the Altai chain, also on the Lower Primorsk, and in 
the valley watered by the Kamchatka. 
There is no such thing as a Siberian Cedar; and we only allude to it for the purpose of preventing 
any one accepting the statement on the faith of Sir Roderick’s well-known accuracy. He subsequently 
informed us that it was a calami lapsus , and that the tree he was speaking of was the Cembra , a tree 
which he had had ample opportunity of studying in all its forms ; and this is evidently the tree which 
Mr. Lansdell has mistaken for the Cedar. 
The best known habitats, however, although apparently much smaller in extent than those above 
mentioned, are those which occur on the mountains of Lebanon, lying between north lat. 33 0 30'and 34 0 15', 
and in east long. 35 0 35' and 36° 5'. So far as we yet know, their present range in that district is, with 
one exception, confined to the western slope of these mountains, parallel to the coast, a little to the 
north of Beyrout, and about 15 miles inland from the sea, running south with a large break in the 
middle, as far as the latitude of Sidon and Damascus. The trees were, within until a very recent 
period, generally supposed to be confined to a single grove at the head of the Kedisha valley; but ten 
or twelve other habitats are now known, five or six of which are at no great distance from this best 
known and probably oldest grove. But although this was the general belief, it was well enough known 
to those who studied the subject, that more than one grove did exist. 
Seetzen, who travelled through that country in 1805, mentioned three localities in periodicals at 
the time. In an account of his travels, which was published in 1854 (Seetzen, “ Reisen durch Syrien,” 
&c., i., pp. 167, 179, and 213), one of these localities was stated to be near El Hadith, south-west of 
Ehden, 
c 2 
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