The deodar, C. deodara, may be distinguished at a glance from either of the other forms of cedar by the graceful drooping of the young growth. A native of the Western Himalayas, at altitudes from 4,000 to 10,000 feet, it has not adapted itself very successfully to our mild, restless winters and cool summers, the very reverse of its native climate. It grows in its own country to an immense size, 150 to 250 feet high, and as much as 35 feet in girth, with long clean boles. Elwes records how a fallen deodar lay for at least one hundred years in one of the leased forests of the North-West before it was cut up, when it sufficed for 460 railway sleepers, narrow gauge.
Deodar seed was first sown in Britain in 1831, at Melville in Fife and Dropmore in Bucks. Ten years later large quantities were raised and planted in the New Forest, but so many of these died without apparent cause between the ages of forty and fifty years that their cultivation there has been discontinued. Similar results have been experienced elsewhere, so it does not seem that this tree, however desirable as an ornamental species, can ever be of importance for forestry in the United Kingdom. Moreover, it is not so hardy as the other two cedars, many having succumbed in all parts of the country during the severe winter of 1860-61. There are, however, many fine specimens in the southern counties of England and in Ireland, ranging from 75 to 85 feet high. In Scotland, Elwes has recorded nothing taller than a tree at Smeaton-Hepburn, which measured 55 feet high in 1902. There are several of about the same height at Galloway House in Wigtownshire.
On the whole, the best species of cedar for planting in this country, whether for timber or ornament, is the cedar of Mount Atlas.
LARCH IN SPRING
LARCH FLOWERS (Male and Female) AND CONES