Cedrus deodara
| Deodar Cedar | |
|---|---|
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| A young tree in cultivation | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Pinophyta |
| Class: | Pinopsida |
| Order: | Pinales |
| Family: | Pinaceae |
| Genus: | Cedrus |
| Species: | C. deodara |
| Binomial name | |
| Cedrus deodara (Roxb.) G.Don |
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Cedrus deodara (Deodar Cedar, Himalayan Cedar, or Deodar; Hindi, Sanskrit: देवदार devadāru; Chinese: 雪松 xue song) is a species of cedar trees that live in the western Himalayas and in eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, north-central India (Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand states), Kashmir, southwesternmost Tibet and western Nepal, and live in places at 1500–3200 m above sea level. It is a large evergreen coniferous tree reaching 40–50 m tall, exceptionally 60 m, with a trunk up to 3m thick. It has a cone-shaped crown with level branches and drooping branchlets.
The leaves are needle-like, mostly 2.5–5 cm long, occasionally up to 7 cm long, very thin (1 mm thick), borne singly on long shoots, and in dense clusters of 20-30 on short shoots; their colours range from bright green to glaucous blue-green in colour. The female cones are barrel-shaped, 7–13 cm long and 5–9 cm broad, and break when up mature (in 12 months) to release the winged seeds. The male cones are 4–6 cm long, and shed their pollen in autumn.
