The Cedar of Lebanon at the Botanics

This cedar has a birth certificate few trees in Scotland can match: 1826, recorded by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's own staff as one of the first trees they planted after the garden moved to its current Inverleith site. That makes it two hundred years old this year, a tidy figure for a species that in the wild can live past a thousand. Cedar of Lebanon was a fashionable statement tree for early 19th century institutions wanting to signal permanence, and RBGE's planting near the Glasshouses did exactly that: broad, flat tiered branches spreading further every decade since Waterloo was recent history. The species appears throughout the Bible as a byword for strength, cut for Solomon's Temple in the older stories, though this particular specimen's only scripture is a planting record in a Scottish institution's own archive. It has outlasted the Palm House built in 1834, watched the garden expand from its original grounds into the wider collection it is today, and will likely outlast whoever is reading this. Entry to the garden grounds is free year round. The Glasshouses nearby are shut for restoration until 2027, but the cedar needs no roof.