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The cedar of Lebanon, one of the most beautiful and symbolic trees in the world, so much so that it has become the banner of the country whose name it bears
The cedar of Lebanon
The cedar of Lebanon is one of the oldest and most celebrated plants in the whole Middle East, so much so that it has become an integral part of the flag of the state from which it takes its name. Its average height is around 40 meters high, but outside Lebanon there are specimens that even reach 60 meters, while its trunk reaches up to 2.5 meters in circumference. The growth of this tree is extremely slow, but also because it can easily reach 1000 years of life, with specimens reaching even 2000 years.
Thanks to its incredible wood, its trunk has been used since the dawn of mankind to build just about anything.
History and uses
We have traces of the cedar of Lebanon already in the epic of Gilgamesh, but the first to use it massively were the Phoenicians who built their ships of this material; after them there were the Egyptians, the Jews, who below Solomon used this material for their Temple, and then Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Arabs, Turks and finally Lebanese.
Precisely because of this massive use and slow growth, the cedar of Lebanon is without a shadow of a doubt one of the plants that has risked extinction several times, so much so that it is still considered “vulnerable” today. Not surprisingly, even the emperor Hadrian in ancient times he ordered the establishment of a protected area for this plant, a tradition that still lives today thanks to the establishment of 4 protected areas in Lebanon: the “Forest of the cedars of God” in Bsharri, the Shuf Cedar Reserve, Horsh Eden Reserve and Tennourine Forest Reserve. It must be said that, unfortunately, the majority of the specimens alive today should not be in Lebanon itself, but on the Taurus mountains in Turkey, a place where an effective repopulation has been taking place for years. In addition to the incredible wood, the cedar of Lebanon is extremely appreciated for its balsamic, antiseptic and anti-catarrhal properties, as well as for its effectiveness in the treatment of psoriasis; finally, it gives off a wonderful aroma and is of incredible appearance and bearing.
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