Cedar of Lebanon

Cedrus libani (Lebanon Cedar or Cedar of Lebanon), is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean region, in Lebanon, western Syria and south central Turkey, with varieties of it (some treated as separate species by some authors) in southwest Turkey, Cyprus, and the Atlas Mountains in Algeria and Morocco in northwest Africa.

It is an evergreen coniferous tree growing up to 40 m tall, with a trunk up to 2.5 m diameter. The crown is conic when young, becoming broadly tabular with age with more or less level branches. The shoots are dimorphic, with long shoots and short shoots. The leaves are needle-like, spaced out on the long shoots, and in clusters of 15-45 on the short shoots; they are 5-30 mm in length, quadrangular in cross-section, and vary from green to glaucous blue-green with stomatal bands on all four sides. The seed cones are produced often every second year, and mature in 12 months from pollination; mature cones in late autumn are 8-12 cm long and 4-6 cm wide, often slightly resinous, and break up to release the winged seeds through the winter. The seeds are 15 mm long, 6 mm broad, with a triangular wing 20-25 mm long. First cone production typically begins when the tree is 20-40 years old. The pollen cones are slender ovoid, 3–5 cm long, produced in late summer and shedding pollen in autumn.