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Home>TRAILS>TREE TRAIL> Quick Notes about the Cedar

The Atlantic Cedar

Quick Notes about the Cedar Take me here now

The Cedar Drive at Staunton
The Cedar Drive at Staunton
The needles of the Atlantic Cedar grow in whorls
The needles of the Atlantic Cedar grow in whorls
The tree features on the Lebanese flag
The tree features on the Lebanese flag

The Facts

Tree Type: The cedar is a large evergreen tree which has needles that radiate out in a whorl. The trees initially grow vertically, and then in later years flatten and spread out to provide a broad canopy and shade. The bark is very dark.

Location: The Atlantic Cedar is slightly different from the Lebanese Cedar, and is found in humid mountainous areas of north Africa from Morocco to Algeria. It is tolerant of dry conditions, and is one of the few conifer trees that will grow there. In Europe, cedars were planted as ornamental trees with a pleasing shape. Staunton had a driveway of cedars, some of which survive and some of which have been recently replanted.

Ecology: Look out for seed cones being produced in the summer, which look like small scaly brown eggs. The cones are very sticky from resin, and gradually split apart to release the seeds inside.

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The Legends 

The cedar forests of north Africa were once huge, providing shade, firewood and timber for the local population. The cultural importance of the cedar remains strong, and the outline of the tree appears on the Lebanese flag.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the very first stories ever written, has the Cedar Forest as an important location. Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu enter the forest, defeat the resident demigod, and cut down the trees to build the great city of Nippur.

Modern day tree cutting has greatly reduced the size of cedar forests as a growing population needs more fuel and clears land for cultivation.

Lebanese cedars grow well in the Himalayan mountains as their downward-sloping branches shrug off heavy snowfalls. 

Make sure your volume is on: "Mostly planted as a park tree"

Show transcript

So we are standing at the top of Cedar Drive, which once held many large cedars planted by Staunton. We have a handful left, and we’ve replanted some smaller ones to keep it going. We are standing under cedrus atlantica, which is a very big tree, about 40 metres high. It has a girth of about 1.2 metres at the bottom.

Identifiable features are its quite dark bark, quite fissured, and its pine needles are in a whorl pattern. Each leaflet is in a little whorl, so that is how you would determine the difference between a pine and the cedar.

Beautiful tree, lovely giants once they get going. It is a conifer so it generally in the first half of its life it will grow up in a conical shape, very much like your standard Christmas tree but as it gets into maturity it stops putting on height ands starts spreading out and sending its branches out laterally creating these lovely platforms which you think you could sit on and have a nice picnic up there.

The cedar of Lebanon is from the Lebanon obviously, and it’s a majestic tree so it is very popular in parklands and big stately homes. Where it grows naturally in the Lebanon they’ve got massive ones – there is a walled forest built by Hadrian the Roman, and some of the trees there are three, four thousand years old they believe!

Cedar wood is a very tough wood, it makes good beams, good cladding. Generally it is not used – you won’t find forests within England - it is not used as a timber tree within the forestry industry in the UK. But it is very good wood so it will make a fantastic beam in the house. But mostly, because it is planted as a park tree, they mostly live their lives out hundreds of years.

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