Cedrus, with the common English namecedar, is a genus ofconiferous trees in the plant familyPinaceae (subfamily Abietoideae). They arenative to the mountains of the westernHimalayas and theMediterranean region at high altitudes. The trees grow tall with a cylindrical trunk and a wide leafy crown. The cones are erect; the leaves grow in tufts of 15–45 needle leaves, which can be bright green or blue-green with a waxy coat. When the cones are mature, they disintegrate to release the seeds, which are winged. Both pollen and seeds are wind-dispersed.
Cedars are often planted as ornamental trees in parks and large gardens, while others are grown asbonsai. Cedar wood and cedarwood oil are naturally repellent to moths, and have an attractive, long-persistent scent.
The generic nameCedrus derives fromOld Englishceder, from the Latin wordcedrus. This in turn is derived fromGreek κέδροςkédros, meaning cedar orjuniper.[1] Species of both trees are native to the area where Greek language and culture originated, though as the wordkédros does not seem to be derived from any of the languages of theMiddle East, it has been suggested the word may originally have applied to Greek species of juniper and was later adopted for species now classified in the genusCedrus because of their aromatic woods.[2] The name was similarly applied tocitron: the wordcitrus is derived from the same root.[3] As a loan word in English, cedar had become fixed to itsbiblical sense ofCedrus by the time of its first recorded usage in 1000CE.[4]
Cedars are tall resinous trees growing to 30–40 metres (100–130 ft) tall, rarely to 65 m (213 ft),[5] with a cylindrical trunk and a narrow to wide crown, conical when young but often becoming irregular with age. In some individuals, several main branches may eventually rival the main trunk in size.[6] Thebark is pale grey-brown and smooth in young trees, dark grey-brown to blackish and splitting into ridges and scales on older trees.[6]
The shoots are dimorphic, made up of long thin leading shoots from terminal buds, each one accompanied by multiple short lateral shoots.[6] Theleaves areevergreen and needle-like, 8–60 millimetres (1⁄4–2+1⁄4 in) long, arranged in an open spiralphyllotaxis on long shoots and in dense spiral clusters of 15–45 together on short shoots; they vary from bright grass-green to dark green to stronglyglaucous pale blue-green, depending on the thickness of the white wax layer which protects the leaves from drying out.[5]
Bark on a young deodar cedar
Bark on a mature Lebanon cedar
Foliage of Lebanon cedar, showing long shoots with widely spaced needles, and short shoots with densely packed needles
Cedars aremonoecious, with separate male and female cones on the same tree.[6] Theseed cones are barrel-shaped,6–12 centimetres (2+1⁄4–4+3⁄4 in) long and 3–8 cm broad, green maturing grey-brown, and, as inAbies, disintegrate at maturity to release the wingedseeds. The seeds are10–15 mm (3⁄8–5⁄8 in) long, with a 20–30 mm wing; as inAbies, the seeds have two or three resin blisters, containing an unpleasant-tastingresin, thought to be a defence againstsquirrel predation. Cone maturation takes one year, with pollination in autumn and the seeds maturing at the same time a year later. Thepollen cones are slender ovoid, 3–8 cm long, produced in late summer, and shed pollen in autumn.[5][7]
Female (seed) cones of Lebanon cedar
Immature male (pollen) cone of Lebanon cedar
Pollen cone of deodar cedar, shedding pollen in the wind
The oldest fossil ofCedrus isCedrus penzhinaensis known from fossil wood found in EarlyCretaceous (Albian) sediments ofKamchatka, Russia.[8] AnEarly Miocene species,Cedrus anatolica, also frompetrified wood and thought to be close toC. atlantica, is known from Turkey.[9]
Cedars have a similar cone structure tofirs (Abies) and were traditionally thought to be most closely related to them, but genetic evidence supports a basal position in the whole of the subfamilyAbietoideae.[10][11][12]
Plate "CEDRUS foliis rigidis acutis perennantibus, conis subrotundis erectis" (Cedar with sharp rigid perennial leaves, subrotund erect cones) fromChristoph Jacob Trew's description of the genus in his 1757Plantae Selectae Quarum Imagines
The genusCedrus was described by the German botanistChristoph Jacob Trew in hisPlantae Selectae Quarum Imagines in 1757.[6] TheCedrus taxa are assigned according totaxonomic opinion to between one and four species.[6][13][14][15] The deodar cedar is sister to the Mediterranean cedars. TheCyprus cedar for example is variously considered to be a variety or subspecies ofCedrus libani, or a speciesC. brevifolia in its own right;[16] some evidence fromallozymes suggests it may even be embedded within the range of variation in the Turkish cedar.[17] Divergence ages are marked on the cladogram.[15][18][19]
The species cannothybridise in nature due to their geographical separation, but when brought together in cultivation, they do so freely. However, because cedars (particularly between the Mediterranean taxa) are so similar to each other, hybrids are notoriously to detect and identify. Hybrids between Atlas and Deodar cedars have been deliberately bred by the Tesi nursery in northern Italy since the 1980s, and were named in 2021 as thecultivar groupCedrus Tesi Group.[20][21]
Cedars are adapted to mountainous climates; in the Mediterranean, they receive winter precipitation, mainly as snow, and summer drought, while in the western Himalaya, they receive primarily summer monsoon rainfall and occasional winter snowfall.[5] They arenative to the mountains of the westernHimalayas and theMediterranean region, occurring at altitudes of 1,500–3,200 m (4,900–10,500 ft) in the Himalayas and 1,000–2,200 m (3,300–7,200 ft) in the Mediterranean.[5] In Lebanon, a small number of cedars of Lebanon survive in protected areas including theCedars of God near theQadisha Valley, aWorld Heritage Site.[22]
Cedars have long been highly valued for their scented, durable, and decay-resistant wood, being in demand for building temples and palaces for over 4,000 years from the period of theEpic of Gilgamesh onwards, the longest record of any conifer in human use.[6] Cultivation of cedars for their wood has an equally long history, with recent genetic and environment studies corroborating local oral mythology andHittitecuneiform text records that two small geographically isolated populations of Lebanon cedar in northernAnatolia 500 km north of its main native area are of human origin, deliberately planted over 3,200 years ago for cedar wood supply to the nearby capital of the Hittite Empire atHattusa.[26]
Cedars are popularornamental trees and are often cultivated intemperate climates where winter temperatures do not fall below −25 °C. The Turkish cedar is slightly hardier, to −30 °C or just below. Extensive mortality of planted specimens can occur in severe winters when temperatures fall lower.[27] Cedars are suitable for training asbonsai in varied styles.[28] Cedar wood andcedarwood oil are naturally repellent to moths.[29]
^Akkemik, Ünal (2021). "A new fossil Cedrus species from the early Miocene of northwestern Turkey and its possible affinities".Palaeoworld.30 (4):746–756.doi:10.1016/j.palwor.2020.12.003.
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