Atlas Cedar

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Atlas cedar (lat. Cedrus atlantica) - one of the plant species of the genus Cedar (lat. Cedrus), belonging to the Pine family (lat. Pinaceae). The homeland of this type of cedar is the mountain system located in the north-west of the African continent and called "Atlas", which served botanists to choose a specific epithet. The similarity of the appearance of the Atlas Cedar with the Lebanese Cedar gives some botanists a reason not to single it out as a separate independent species, but to consider it one of the subspecies of the Lebanese Cedar. But not all botanists adhere to this opinion, and therefore in the literature Atlas cedar is often considered an independent species of the small genus Cedar.

Description

The adult Atlas cedar is an evergreen coniferous tree of impressive size. Its height reaches from thirty to forty meters with a trunk diameter of one and a half to two meters. It is difficult for a person who is far from the botanical intricacies of individual plants to distinguish two different species of the genus Cedar - Atlas Cedar from Lebanese Cedar, very similar in appearance. But botanists find subtle differences in them, insisting on their certain independence. When comparing the length of the needles and cones of these two species, the Atlas Cedar is generally inferior in size to the Lebanese Cedar, although some of its representatives can boast of twelve centimeters long cones, just like the Lebanese Cedar cones may well be six centimeters long.

The average length of the needles of the Atlas Cedar is recognized to be within two and a half centimeters. The needles love cohesion, and therefore are collected in dense bunches, showing a color from dark green to bluish green or grayish blue. The cones are cylindrical in shape and have winged seeds.

The wood of the Atlas Cedar is solidly impregnated with resin, which gives the tree a persistent aroma.

But what certainly distinguishes the Atlas cedar from the Lebanese is its high drought resistance, because it has to adapt to the sun's rays, which warm Africa hotter than the Mediterranean. Frost is on his shoulder, if they do not lower the mercury column of the thermometer below the mark of minus twenty degrees Celsius.

Use of the Atlas cedar by man

Although the Atlas cedar grows in remote mountainous areas, man has managed to drastically reduce its quantitative presence on the planet, using it for the simplest household needs, in particular, as firewood. Fire is a dangerous enemy of the cedar forests. The decline in cedar forests is automatically reflected in the number of Barbary monkeys that live in these forests and are threatened with extinction from the face of the Earth.

Today, Morocco has the richest cedar forests, where people plant young trees to maintain the country's forests. The situation with the cedar forests located on the territory of Algeria is much more sad.

The tolerance of Atlas Cedar to hot and dry living conditions and the decorative appearance of the tree attract designers of garden landscapes. Some trees have fluffier shoots, more whorls of leaves, and bluish foliage, making them popular in parks and gardens in temperate cities.

In Washington, on the South Lawn of the White House, Atlas Cedars grow. One of them, designed by President Carter, built a house for his daughter, which was located on a tree in such a way as not to interfere with its growth and development.

In France, in the south of the country, cedar plantations have been created, on which Atlas cedars mainly grow. The purpose of the plantation is to grow cedars for their timber.