48 
CEDRUS LIBANI 
old. At Ratho there are some fine Cedars with trunks from 12 to 15 feet in girth. There is an old one 
of equal girth at Invergowrie. At Hamilton Palace, in Lanarkshire, there were some which in i860 were 
eighty years old, and 40 feet high ; but they were killed in that winter. At Carlowrie, in Linlithgowshire, 
there is a specimen sixty years old, and 35 feet in height. These dimensions shew the slower growth in 
Scotland. The following are the sizes and ages of some of the Cedars in Scotland :— 
County. 
Place. 
Height in 
Feet. 
Supposed 
Age. 
Girth. 
Remarks. 
Feet. Lines. 
At height in ft. 
from Ground. 
East Lothian . 
Beil. 
54'6 
IIO 
13 6 
Spread of branches, 201 (Loudon). 
Lanark .... 
Hamilton Palace 
40 
80 
. . . 
. . . 
... 
Linlithgow 
Carlowrie. 
35 
60 
. . . 
. . . 
... 
Midlothian 
Arniston ..... 
. . . 
. . . 
12 O 
Spread of branches, 60 ft. in diameter. 
» ... 
Hopetoun House 
81 
Il8 
... 
... 
... 
We know of no Cedars of much age in Ireland, excepting those already referred to as having the 
reputation of being planted by Sir Walter Raleigh. 
In France the Cedar thrives well; fine Cedars are common, although the tree is not grown so 
extensively as in England. It is not at all fastidious, growing on almost every description of soil, although 
clay or gravel seems to suit it better than sand or chalk. Loiseleur says that the oldest Cedar in Franee 
was introduced in 1734 by Bernard de Jussieu, who, on returning from his first visit to England, brought 
with him two young Cedar plants, so small, that to preserve them more securely, he is said to have carried 
them in the crown of his hat.'^ One of them was placed on the mount in the Jardin des Plantes, where 
it still is. It appears that the other young plant, after being long lost sight of, was discovered by M. 
Merat, in 1832, at the Chateau de Montigny, near Montereau, a little town about eighteen leagues from 
Paris. The Cedar at this place, although planted at the same time as that in the Jardin des Plantes, had, 
when last reported on, its trunk at least one-third larger than it; a circumstance due to its having been 
planted in good soil, instead of being planted, as the other was, on a heap of rubbish, and injured by an 
accumulation of soil being heaped about its roots. M. Henri Vilmorin, of the well-known house of 
Vilmorin-Andrieux, & Cie., seedsmen in Paris, who has kindly assisted us in procuring information 
regarding the growth of the Cedar on the Continent, tells us that the finest example in Franee which he 
has heard of, is at Montigny Lencoup, near Provins. It is little more than a hundred years old, and in 
1827 was already 14 feet in girth at 3 feet above the ground, and is now (1883) exactly 28 feet 4 inches in 
girth at 5 feet above the soil. 
M. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps mentions that the greatest planter of Cedars in France that he knew 
of was the Viscount Hericart de Thury, who, in 1780, planted many trees on the mountain of St. Martin 
le Pauvre, Departement de l’Oise. 
The same author also speaks of having seen in 1835 a remarkably fine pyramidal Cedar on the 
estate of the celebrated Duhamel du Monceau, with a stem 70 or 80 feet in height, giving out horizontal 
branches all the way up, and 12 feet 8| inches in girth at a man’s height from the ground, and 16 feet at 
* There is a romantic story (the germ of which is no doubt to be traced in the fact set forth above) in regard to this introduction of the Cedar into Trance a story which is 
worth placing on record as an instance of the firm hold which plausible tales have on the popular mind. The story runs that “Bernard de Jussieu, the celebrated botanist, when 
travelling in the Holy Land, brought away with him from among the Cedars of Mount Lebanon a little seedling. Being unprovided with better means of conveyance, he made a 
flowerpot of his hat, and planted it in it. He got it safely on board the vessel in which he sailed for France, but tempestuous weather and contrary winds drove the ship out of her 
course, and prolonged the voyage so much that the water began to fail. All on board were placed on short allowance; the crew, having to work, were allowed one glassful of water 
in the day; the passengers, not having to work, only half a glassful. It was a hard struggle for Jussieu to refrain from drinking the whole of his small daily allowance, and to leave 
some for the plant, and probably no one but a naturalist would have dreamed of such an act of self-privation. But his enthusiasm sustained him. All through the lengthened 
voyage, under the bright sun of the Mediterranean, he shared his half-glassful of water with his little plant. His own strength began to sink under the prolonged privation; but he 
never flinched, and arrived at Marseilles with his own health damaged, but with that of his little plant uninjured. On landing, the exhausted botanist had nearly lost the whole of 
the benefit of his self-denial from the incredulity of the custom-house officers, who could not understand or believe in the interest he professed to take in the plant, and insisted on 
emptying the strange pot, to see if there were no ‘ undeclared 1 lace, jewels, or prohibited articles buried beneath the roots of the seedling. Entreaties and eloquent appeals to his 
past sufferings on its behalf at last softened their hearts, and he was allowed to carry off the relic of the Cedars of Lebanon undisturbed. He brought it to Paris, and planted it in 
the Jardin des Plantes, there to become the feature of historical interest which now it is.” The narrator does not leave the Cedar plant there, for after endowing it with a not wholly 
fabulous popularity, he clears the plant away to make room for a railway which does not exist! 
This tale first appeared (so far as we know) in Sharpe's London Magazine. It was then repeated in the Gardeners' Chronicle (vii., p. 75 x , J ^ 47 )) was disinterred and 
reproduced in an article in the Edinburgh Review (Oct. 1864); and afterwards referred to by Daubeny in his “ Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients ” (p. 34, 1865). 
the 
