CEDRUS LIBANI 
49 
MJ - 
the ground. He also notices two other handsome trees at Vrigny, although not so fine as the first: one 
of these, a few years ago, was 72 feet high, and 18 feet 9 inches in circumference at 3 feet above the 
ground. It very soon branches off in four or five big boughs, which form a very broad head, exceeding 
80 feet in diameter. Besides these, the following have been recorded as noteworthy, viz., a Cedar which 
is in the old garden of the Marechal de Noailles at St. Germain; one in the Marbeuf Garden in the 
Champs-Elysees ; and some in that of the Trianon at Versailles, which were all 8 or 10 feet in girth at 
the height of a man ; and one in M. Leroux’s park at Franconville, seven leagues to the north of Paris, 
which is now spoken of as an especially fine example, which was seventy years old (in 1835) and 12 feet 
3 inches in girth at the base of the trunk. 
M. Vilmorin gives the dimensions of a young tree, planted by his grandfather (about 1816), in his 
country place, Verrieres, near Paris. In 1856, it was 60 feet high, and 6 feet 10 inches in girth at 3 feet 
above the ground. In 1866 it was 81 feet high, and 8 feet 10 inches in girth at the same height, and at 
this present date (1883) it is 84 feet high and 11 feet 1 inch in girth at 3 feet 4 inches above the soil. It 
has ceased for several years growing in height. The soil is good loam. 
Loudon speaks of a tree in the park at Fromont, near Paris, thirty-two years planted, 58 feet high, 
with the trunk 1 feet and the head 36 feet in diameter. M. Henri Vilmorin informs us that this park, 
which was laid out and planted by Soulange Bodin, contains several fine Cedars of various shapes, some 
being upwards of 80 feet high, and one more than 12 feet in girth at 3 feet from the ground. 
Loudon also specifies one at Nantes, in the nursery of M. Nerrieres, forty years old in 1857, and 50 
feet high, with a trunk 12 feet in girth; one at Fremont, then thirty-two years, and one at Barres, twenty- 
eighf years old, and one or two other younger specimens. 
Loiseleur-Deslongchamps mentions two Cedars planted in the plain of Beaulieu, near Geneva, of 
which the largest was in 1823, and at the age of eighty years, (according to M. Micheli de Chateauvieux,) 
8 feet 5 inches in circumference at 4 feet from the ground. These may probably be a portion of the trees 
mentioned by Professor de Candolle as dropping seeds, the young plants from which seem disposed to 
naturalize themselves. 
Prof. Karl Koch of Berlin states that the Cedar is killed throughout the north of Germany as far 
as the mountains of Thuringia (Thiiringer Wald), even when it is well covered up during the winter: 
consequently they are only to be seen there in pots. It is not so much cold which kills it, as the changes 
of climate in the first weeks of spring when the plant begins to shoot, and bad weather suddenly comes, 
and sometimes several degrees of cold. On this side of the Rhine the Cedar prospers in some localities, 
even near Aix-la-Chapelle, while, on the contrary, it is very generally killed at Frankfort-sur-Mein. There 
are some large trees near Hombourg, not far from Frankfort, planted during the last century, but when 
some of these have died, and the attempt has been made to replace them with new ones, it appears that 
now they have been unable to resist the severity of the climate, and every attempt has failed. The 
Deodar suffers less, and at Berlin they had specimens which stood the cold for several years, but unhappily 
they succumbed during an unfavourable winter. 
We cannot hear of any specimens in Austria, whence we conclude that the same fate attends it there 
as in more northern Germany. 
It may be supposed, that although this is the usual result in Germany, there may be some more 
favourably situated spots where the Cedar will still thrive; for among the foreign specimens recorded by 
Loudon and some French authors, was one at Worlitz, in Saxony, which had been sixteen years planted, 
and was 25 feet high when he wrote. On inquiring after it, however, we learn that Worlitz is no excep¬ 
tion to the general rule throughout Germany, and that the trees (for there were more than one, and Loudon 
must have been speaking from old information) at Worlitz were all dead by the time Loudon’s pages 
appeared. M. G. L. Schoch, of Worlitz, reports that there were six Cedars in the ducal gardens, and that 
they were considerably older than stated by Loudon, having been planted between 1780 and 1790. 
These 
F33] 
N 
