Scientific Name
Other Names
Life Form
Synonyms
Family
Wood - Fuelwood: Its wood is used for fuelwood, and timber. Medicine - Its oil and extracts are used as insecticides and herbal remedies against many animal diseases. .
Afghanistan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan
Occurs on moderate to precipitous slopes on rocky precipitous slopes, generally dominating cool northern slopes where it usually forms pure crops of considerable extent at altitudes of 2000-2500 m asl.
This rot-resistant tree is the national tree of Pakistan. Also called "deodar cedar" which means "timber of the gods".
It is a large evergreen, dioecious tree up to 65 m tall.
Branches grow irregularly from the trunk, not in neat circles like some trees. The bark is a striking greyish-brown, almost black, with vertical and diagonal cracks that form long, flat scales.
Leaves solitary, acicular, stiff, sharp-pointed, 25-37 mm long, silvery or silvery-blue, on the normal long shoots spirally arranged, and on the short arrested shoots in pseudowhorls.
Male flowers solitary and erect or catkins, pale green to yellowish green with purplish tinge, oblong, ovoid, and 2.5 to 4.6 cm long by 1 to 1.5 cm in diameter. On opening they elongate rapidly to 5-7.5 cm in length and become yellow with pollen. The female flowers are solitary and erect at the end of arrested branchlets; flowers, at the time of pollination, are oblong, ovoid, 1.2 to 2.0 cm long and 0.6 cm in diameter, pale glaucous green.
Cones solitary or in pairs, erect, ovoid or ellipsoidal, 7.5-12 cm long and 5- 8.7 cm in diameter with numerous fan-shaped scales arranged in spiral of 8 x 5 on persistent woody central axis, rounded at the apex, bluish when young, reddish-brown when ripe. On each scale rests a pair of winged seeds.
Male cones appear in June Female cones appear in August