Cedar

Cedar, the popular name of a variety of trees, mostly agreeing in having a reddish-brown aromatic wood. The coniferous genus Cedrus includes only four forms, all native to the Old World: - C. Deodara, the deodar of the Himalayas; C. Libani, the cedar of Lebanon and Taurus; C. Libani, var. brevifolia, of Cyprus; and C. atlantica, the Algerian, or Mount Atlas cedar. Cedrus has its needle-like leaves fascicled, like the larches; but unlike those trees, evergreen, so that they remain on the tree for several years after the dwarf-shoot has elongated. Its cones are erect, with broad, thin-edged scales which ultimately fall away from the axis, as in the firs (Abies). C. Libani has horizontal; C. Beodara, drooping; and C. atlantica, ascending, branches; but otherwise there is little difference between these geographical races. The Lebanon cedar seems to have been introduced into England about 1670; the deodar in 1822. Among the oldest and finest cedar trees in England is one at Enfield, Middlesex. The wood is durable, and, if not very long-lived, the tree suggests strength by its form, and this is probably the origin of its Semitic name, as it is also at the root of most of the figurative allusions to it in Holy Scripture (Ezekiel xxxi., etc.). Martin frequently introduced the level lines of cedar boughs by the side of Assyrian architecture in his pictures. The wood of Juniperus bermudiana. is known as pencil cedar. and that of J. virginiana, is also used in making lead-pencils. Cedrela odorata, an angiospermous tree, native to the West Indies, yields the wood known as Honduras, Jamaica, or Barbadoes cedar, used for cigar boxes.