—Cedars here,
Coeval with the sky-crowned mountain's self,
Spread wide their giant arms.
The prophet Ezekiel has given us the fullest description of the Cedar: "Behold the Assyrian was a Cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. His boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long. The fir-trees were not like his boughs, nor the chestnut-trees like his branches, nor any tree in the garden of God like unto him in beauty."
In this description, two of the principal characteristics of the Cedar are marked.
The first is, the multiplicity and length of his branches. Few trees divide so many fair branches from the main stem, or spread over so large a compass of ground. His boughs are multiplied, as Ezekiel says, and his branches become long, which David calls spreading abroad.
The second characteristic is his shadowing shroud. No tree in the forest is more remarkable than the Cedar for its close-woven leafy canopy. Ezekiel's Cedar is marked as a tree of full and perfect growth, from the circumstance of its top being among the thick boughs. Almost every young tree, and particularly every young Cedar, has what is called a leading branch or two, which continue spiring above the rest till the tree has attained its full size; then the tree becomes, in the language of the nurseryman, clump-headed: but, in the language of eastern sublimity its top is among the thick boughs; that is, no distinction of any spiry head, or leading branch, appears; the head and the branches are all mixed together. This is generally, in all trees, the state in which they are most perfect and most beautiful. Such is the grandeur and form of the Cedar of Lebanon. Its mantling foliage, or shadowing shroud, as Ezekiel calls it, is its greatest beauty, which arises from the horizontal growth of its branches forming a kind of sweeping, irregular penthouse. And when to the idea of beauty that of strength is added, by the pyramidal form of the stem, and the robustness of the limbs, the tree is complete in all its beauty and majesty. In these climates, indeed, we cannot expect to see the Cedar in such perfection. The forest of Lebanon is, perhaps, the only part of the world where its growth is perfect; yet we may, in some degree, conceive its beauty and majesty, from the paltry resemblances of it at this distance from its native soil. In its youth, it is often with us a vigorous thriving plant; and if the leading branch is not bound to a pole (as many people deform their Cedars), but left to take its natural course, and guide the stem after it in some irregular waving line, it is often an object of great beauty. But, in its maturer age, the beauty of the English Cedar is generally gone; it becomes shrivelled, deformed, and stunted; its body increases, but its limbs shrink and wither. Thus it never gives us its two leading qualities together. In its youth, we have some idea of its beauty, without its strength; and in its advanced age, we have some idea of its strength, without its beauty. The imagination, therefore, by joining together the two different periods of its age in this climate, may form some conception of the grandeur of the Cedar in its own climate, where its strength and beauty are united.
(Leaves, Cone and Seeds of Cedar of Lebanon)
The following particular botanical description of this celebrated tree, is given by Loudon in his Arboretum:—