as we have seen these are not distinguishable as they get older. At Glasnevin there is a remarkable tree about forty years old, of which the stem is erect for about 25 feet, and beyond this bends over almost horizontally, extending laterally outwards for almost 12 feet; and Elwes saw one of very slender and pendulous habit at Angers in France.
Distribution
This cedar occurs in Algeria and Morocco. In the latter country its distribution is still scarcely known, though it was in Morocco that the Atlas cedar was first discovered. Philip Barker Webb visited[1] Tangiers and Tetuan in the spring of 1827, and from a native received branches of cedar which had been collected in the impenetrable mountains of the province of El Rif, where there were said to be vast forests. Webb's specimens are preserved in the museum at Florence, where I saw them in December 1906. His discovery was published in an article[2] by De Candolle in 1837. Dr. Trabut[3] states that the tree occurs in the mountains behind Tetuan; and it is supposed[4] to exist to the south-east of Fez, where the traveller Rohlfs states that he saw larch growing.
In Algeria the cedar[5] forms a considerable number of isolated forests, none of them of great extent, at altitudes between 4000 and 6900 feet. The tree appears to be indifferent to soil, as it grows both on limestone and on sandstone formations. No meteorological observations have been regularly taken in the cedar forests; but in general, where the tree flourishes, snow lies for several months during winter, the temperature descending to 5° Fahr., and frost prevailing until May. In summer the weather is dry with moderate temperatures.
In the following detailed account I have supplemented my own observations by consulting both the special pamphlet[6] concerning the cedar, published by order of Governor-General Cambon, and M. Lefebvre's excellent book[7] on the forests of Algeria.
The chief forests are those in the vicinity of Ouarsenis, Téniet-el-Hâad, and Blida, and in the Djurdjura range in the province of Algiers; and those on Mt. Babor, in the Mdadid mountains south of Sétif, and in the Aurès and Belezma mountains near Batna.
The forest[8] of Ouarsenis, the most westerly in Algeria, lies in the mountains south of Orléansville. Here the cedar, mostly in mixture with Quercus Ilex, only covers an area of 250 acres. The forest near Blida, which is often visited by tourists, as it lies near the railway not far from Algiers, is 1700 acres in extent, and consists of cedars either growing pure or in mixture with the evergreen oak; and it is, generally speaking, in a poor condition. In the Djurdjura range, extending in an interrupted band on both slopes for nearly 4o miles, are the remains of an ancient forest, most of the trees either growing singly or in small groups on rocks and precipices,
- ↑ Gay, Bull. Soc. Bot. France, iii, 39 (1856).
- ↑ Bibliotheque Universelle de Genève, 1837, pp. 439, 440.
- ↑ Les Zones Botaniques de l'Algérie, 7 (1888).
- ↑ Lefebvre, Les Forêts de Cèdre, 1 (1894).
- ↑ A fine picture of a forest in Algeria is given in Garden and Forest, viii. 335, f. 47 (1895).
- ↑ Les Forêts de Cèdre (Alger-Mustapha, 1894).
- ↑ Les Forêts de l'Algérie, pp. 406–421 (Alger-Mustapha, 1900).
- ↑ Hutchison, Trans. R. Scot. Arb. Soc. xiii. 211, states, but does not give his authority, that cedars were cut here, the diameter of which was so great, that it was necessary to join two saw-blades, each 6½ feet long, in order to fell the trees.
