Common names:
Cyprus cedar, Kedros (Greek), Kibris sediri (Turkish)
Description
Short shoots with 15-20 needles 0.5-2 cm long. Pollen cones 3-4 cm long. Seed cones(5-)7-10 cm long.
Troodos Mountains of western Cyprus.
Cedrus libani
Tree to 30(-40) m tall or dwarfed at the alpine timberline, with trunk to 1.5(-2.5) m in diameter. Bark dark grayish brown, breaking up into vertically aligned, scaly blocks. Crown remaining conical in forest-grown trees but often broadening and flattening markedly with age in isolation, with long horizontal branches bearing horizontal or rising side branches. Young long shoots hairless or densely hairy with short, dark hairs. Winter buds 2-3 mm long, usually not conspicuously resinous. Needles in tufts of (15-)20-35(-45) on short shoots, dark green or grayish green with wax, 0.5-2.5 cm long (to 4 cm on long shoots), with a short point. Pollen cones 3-5 cm long, red. Seed cones 5-10(-12) cm long, 3-6 cm across, light green to grayish green with purplish highlights before maturity, ripening brown, broadly rounded, flat, indented, or with a central bump at the tip. Seed scales 2-3.5 cm long, 2.5-4 cm wide, with rusty hairs on the hidden lower surface. Seed body (8-)10-15 mm long, the wing 10-20 mm longer.
Mountains adjacent to the northeastern Mediterranean coast, from the western Taurus Mountains of southwestern Turkey to the Mountains of Lebanon, with an outlier in Tokat province (Turkey) near the Black Sea; (900-)1,300-2,500(-3000) m.
