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Cedrus
Also called Vascular Plants, Tracheophytes
Cedrus is a small genus of 1 to 3 coniferous evergreen trees in the pine family, known as cedars, native to the western Himalayas and Mediterranean mountains. Commonly grown members are tall ornamental trees that need full sun, well-drained soil and a cold winter.
Cedrus is a small genus in the pine family, Pinaceae (subfamily Abietoideae), consisting of 1-3 species of coniferous trees known in English as cedars. They are native to the mountains of the western Himalayas and the Mediterranean 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 grown as bonsai. Cedar wood and cedarwood oil are naturally repellent to moths, and have an attractive, long-persistent scent.
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. They are native to the mountains of the western Himalayas and the Mediterranean 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. In Lebanon, a small number of cedars of Lebanon survive in protected areas including the Cedars of God near the Qadisha Valley, a World Heritage Site.
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 the Epic of Gilgamesh onwards, the longest record of any conifer in human use. Cultivation of cedars for their wood has an equally long history, with recent genetic and environment studies corroborating local oral mythology and Hittite cuneiform text records that two small geographically isolated populations of Lebanon cedar in northern Anatolia 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 at Hattusa.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cedrus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
