The Himalayan Cedar of the Botanical Garden

This cedar's growth and the garden's own site are almost exactly the same age. The Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques moved to its present Avenue de la Paix grounds in 1904 under director John Briquet, with the winter garden and surrounding landscaping built out over the following years; the cantonal register separately dates this Himalayan cedar's planting to 1912, a genuine recorded year rather than a placeholder, squarely inside that same building-out window. It has grown into one of the garden's largest specimens: five metres round the trunk, 34 metres tall, a crown spreading 25 metres, most recently surveyed in August 2025 in good health. That makes it roughly a century old, younger than the garden's own oak nearby, which predates the garden itself by close to two centuries, but old enough to have stood through both world wars and the whole of the garden's modern development. A second, slightly smaller Himalayan cedar from the same 1912 planting stands about two hundred metres away, last surveyed over a decade ago; this is the fresher and larger of the pair. Enter from Avenue de la Paix and the tree stands a short walk from the gate.