Edwin says that all of the atlanticas are now C. libani var. atlantica. So don't feel bad if you can't tell them apart!

Sara

Atlas cedars tend not to be so sharp and stiff (of both leaf and habit), with smaller, less lumpy cones. In my area there are way more of them around than Cedar-of-Lebanon and Cyprus cedar.

Maybe I don't notice other Cedars, but for whatever the reason, around here it is mostly C. atlántica--with the weeping one being about as common as the non-weeping variety. Think i read that atlantica does better in a wet/humid climate, so that may explain it. One of my favorite trees.

well??

i bend over a little further..

adjust the trifocals..

and then ask someone else

helpful???

lol

ken

Cultivated stock doesn't all fit into neat boxes either, hence such discussions - and the suggestion that some trees are derived from hybrid seed arising in cultivation. Schwartz (sp?) thought there were two basic species, a Himalayan and a Mediterranean in the 1940s, and later interpretation continues in that same vein.

Resin is it a subspecies or a variety? And I'm not sure that I really understand the difference.

Sara

Subspecies (subsp.) is a higher rank than variety (var.), which is in turn a higher rank than a form (f.).

Treating Atlas Cedar as a subspecies fits the currently known data best.

Resin

So that a subspecies would be more like the species than a variety would (on a continuum)?

Are these mostly determined by location?

Thx for the botany lesson!

Sara

Honestly, back in italy, it has never been a problem to distinguish lebanon cedars from atlanticas. Even people with no botany experience distinguish them. The lebanon cedars have a completely different habit when mature. The color is also very different. The lebanon cedars have a emerald green or darker foliage while the atlanticas are more glaucous. Also lebanon cedars are less hardy.

This of course only applies to the plants that are common in Italy. It might have little to do with the general behaviour of the species.

Both types come in different shades of green and gray. In the ne US the hardy ones are Cedar-of-Lebanon forms. Atlas cedar is from Africa, Cedar-of-Lebanon grows in Turkey etc. where some parts may be quite a bit colder than the Atlas Mountains.