Flowers in Israel – ישראל פרחים תמונות

There are only three species of Cedars in the world: the Lebanon cedar, the Deodar of the Himalayas and theMount Atlas Cedar. The Lebanon cedar is originally native to Asia Minor. This tree does not grow wild in Israel and large forests of Lebanon cedars of ancient days no longer exist. But because of its beauty and history the Lebanon cedar has been planted throughout the world. The Lebanon Cedar is a mountain tree that grows in rocky soils at heights of about 1800m. The Lebanon cedar doesn’t flower until it is 25-30 years old. The flowers or catkins are unisexual, with both male and female flowers on the same tree. The 5 cm catkins are reddish in color and the cones become 10-12 cm long and stand up straight on the branch.Over the centuries, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians made expedition to Mount Lebanon for timber or extracted tributes of wood from the coastal cities of Canaan-Phoenicia. The Phoenicians built their trade ship and military fleets from Cedar wood as well as the roofs of their temples, houses and doorsills. Kings of neighboring and distant countries asked for this wood to build their religious and civil constructs; the most famous of which are the temple of Jerusalem and David’s and Solomon’s Palaces:“So David gave orders to assemble the aliens living in Israel, and from among them he appointed stonecutters to prepare dressed stone for building the house of God. He provided a large amount of iron to make nails for the doors of the gateways and for the fittings, and more bronze than could be weighed. He also provided more cedar logs than could be counted, for the Sidonians and Tyrians had brought large numbers of them to David” (Chronicles I 22:2-4). The Cedar is mentioned 75 times in the Bible, and all are included in the Old Testament -Torah.

The cedar of Lebanon is also the main tool in the oldest epic ever written by man -The Epic of Gilgamesh- a story from Mesopotamia, which dates back 4.700 years ago. The Epic of Gilgamesh’s Forest Journey tells the story of Gilgamesh’s need for timber to finish his magnificent city. He turned his attention on the forest near southern Mesopotamia, which was protected by the deity Enlil. Enlil had forecast that once humans entered the forest, they would destroy all the trees, the ‘divine beauty’. A great battle broke out between the demigod guarding the forest and the humans. Human greed won and the forest was completely stripped of its trees, leaving nothing but bare ground. The Scriptures by Ezekiel (31:1-18) illustrate beautifully how these lofty kings of the forest were used by prophet orators to symbolize and typify worldly might, power, and glory. *Thus one obtains a fair idea of the crowning insolence of Sennacherib(705BCE-681BCE), the invader, when he boasted in the year 700 B.C.: “With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests. Nebuchadnezzar (605BCE-562BCE) boasted on a cuneiform, inscription: “I brought for building, mighty cedars, which I cut down with my pure hands on Mount Lebanon”. Prized for its fragrance and durability, the length of the great logs made cedar wood especially desirable.The Egyptians used cedar resin for mummification, and pitch was extracted from these trees for waterproofing and caulking. In the second century CE the Roman Emperor Hadrian (76CE-138CE) attempted to protect the forest with boundary markers, most carved into living rock, others in the form of separate engraved stones. In the centuries after Hadrian, Lebanon’s trees were used extensively as fuel, especially for lime burning kilns. In the Middle Ages mountain villagers cleared forests for farmland, using the wood for fuel and construction. The Ottomans in the 19th century destroyed much of the forest cover and during World War II British troops used the wood to build railroad between Tripoli and Haifa.

In his book, “The Natural History of the Bible”, H.B.Tristam (1880) says of the cedars: “… Everyone who has seen these noble trees recognizes the force of the majestic imagery of the prophets. With their gnarled and contorted stems and scaly bark, with their massive branches, with their dark green leaves shot with silver in the sunlight, as they stand a lovely group in the stupendous mountain amphitheater, the assert their title to the monarchs of the forests”. Today the most venerable representatives of the Cedars of Lebanon, which once covered the entire country, are in the Besharre region of North Lebanon. Some 400 trees, many between 1,200 and 2,000 years old stand on slopes 2,000 meters high in the shadow of 3,100-meter peak of Qornet es-Sawda.The Lebanon Cedar is the national emblem of Lebanon, and it is seen on the Lebanese Flag.