deodar n : tall East Indian cedar having spreading branches with nodding tips; highly valued for its appearance as well as its timber [syn: deodar cedar, Himalayan cedar, Cedrus deodara]

English

Etymology

From colloquial Hindustani देओदार / de'o-dār < देवदारु / dev-dāru < देवदारु ‘divine tree’.

Pronunciation

/ˈdiːəʊdɑː/

Noun

1. A type of cedar tree native to the western Himalayas.
   • 1888: There were beautifully arranged tea-tables under the deodars at Annandale, where the Grand Stand is now — Rudyard Kipling, ‘Cupid's Arrows’, Plain Tales from the Hills (Folio Society 2007, p. 47)

Cedrus deodara (Deodar Cedar, Himalayan Cedar, or Deodar; Hindi, Sanskrit: देवदार devdar; Chinese: 雪松 xue song) is a species of cedar native to the western Himalaya in eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and (Kashmir), northeast and north-central India (Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal states) southwesternmost Tibet and western Nepal, occurring at 1500-3200 m altitude. It is a large evergreen coniferous tree reaching 40-50 m tall, exceptionally 60 m, with a trunk up to 3 m diameter. It has a conic crown with level branches and drooping branchlets.

The leaves are needle-like, mostly 2.5-5 cm long, occasionally up to 7 cm long, slender (1 mm thick), borne singly on long shoots, and in dense clusters of 20-30 on short shoots; they vary from bright green to glaucous blue-green in colour. The female cones are barrel-shaped, 7-13 cm long and 5-9 cm broad, and disintegrate when mature (in 12 months) to release the winged seeds. The male cones are 4-6 cm long, and shed their pollen in autumn. It is commonly grown in western Europe (north to Scotland), in the Mediterranean region, around the Black Sea, in southern and central China, on the west coast of North America as far north as Vancouver, British Columbia, and in the southeastern United States from Texas to Virginia.

The most cold-tolerant trees originate in the northwest of the species' range in Kashmir and Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Selected cultivars from this region are hardy to zone 7 or even zone 6, tolerating temperatures down to about −30 °C. Of these, 'Eisregen', 'Eiswinter', 'Karl Fuchs', and 'Polar Winter' were selected in Germany from seed collected in Paktia; 'Kashmir' was a selection of the nursery trade, whereas 'Shalimar' originated from seeds collected in 1964 from Shalimar Gardens, India (in the Kashmir region) and propagated at the Arnold Arboretum.

It is the national tree of Pakistan. The name "deodar" is derived from modern Indian language derivatives of the Sanskrit name 'devdar', meaning "timber of the gods".

References

commonspar Cedrus deodara