Cedrus atlantica Seeds | Atlas Cedar
LATIN NAME: Cedrus atlantica
COMMON NAME: Atlas Cedar
Plant Profile
Atlas cedar is the conifer that gives a garden a horizon. It is large, thirty to forty metres in the open, with a heavy trunk and a crown that starts broad and flat-topped and becomes, with age, a set of horizontal tiers of foliage on nearly bare limbs. The needles are short, stiff and gathered in dense rosettes on short shoots, grey-green in the type and intensely blue on the form sold as Glauca. Cones sit upright on the upper branches like small barrels, grey-green turning brown, and they disintegrate on the tree rather than falling whole. The bark is grey and fissured, and on old trees it cracks into plates. It comes from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria, between about 1,300 and 2,600 metres, where it forms open forests on dry, rocky slopes. It is slow, long-lived and, once established, extremely drought-tolerant.
Science & Biotechnology
The taxonomic position of the Atlas cedar has been argued for a century: it is treated either as a species, Cedrus atlantica, or as a subspecies of the cedar of Lebanon, C. libani subsp. atlantica, and the molecular evidence supports the second view, with the Atlas populations diverging relatively recently. Either way it is a true cedar, in Pinaceae and not in the cypress family, with 2n = 24 and upright cones that shatter at maturity, unlike the firs. Its native forests have suffered a documented decline since the 1980s, driven by drought, bark beetles and repeated defoliation by the processionary moth, and the species is assessed as endangered in the wild. Blue foliage is a wax character rather than a pigment one: the needles carry more epicuticular wax, which reflects light and also reduces water loss.
Uses & Benefits
It is an ornamental of the first rank: a specimen for a park, a large garden or an avenue, planted for the blue forms and the tiered silhouette. The timber is aromatic, fine-grained and durable, and has been used for furniture, joinery and shipbuilding in its native range for millennia, though little now comes out of the Atlas. The essential oil distilled from the wood is used in perfumery and aromatherapy, and the sawdust is burned as incense in Morocco. The resin has a folk medicinal record as an antiseptic. In cultivation the tree is common and the wild tree is not, which makes it an odd conservation case: a species abundant in gardens and shrinking in its only native range. In a garden it needs room and does not tolerate being moved.
Growing from Seed
Sow in late winter after four to six weeks of cold, moist stratification; germination is uneven over four to eight weeks at 18 to 22 degrees. Use a gritty, well-drained mix, keep the seedlings in full sun, and water from below to avoid damping off. The seedlings are slow, five to fifteen centimetres a year, and they develop a deep taproot, so pot them into deep containers and disturb the root as little as possible. Plant out at thirty to fifty centimetres, in full sun and sharp drainage, on a slope or a raised bed if the soil is heavy. Do not enrich the planting hole. Stake for two years, water in the first two summers only, and choose the site as though it were final, because transplanted cedars sulk for years.
Our Take
A slow, imposing specimen for a large garden, especially in the blue-leaved form. Give it sun, drainage, room and no disturbance at the root.
Related Reading
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