The Himalayan Cedars of Atouguia Cemetery

Three Himalayan cedars stand at the gates of Guimaraes' municipal cemetery, tall enough that they read as a landmark from the road below rather than as cemetery planting. Cedrus deodara comes from the western Himalaya, from Afghanistan through to Nepal, where it can live past a thousand years and grow to twice the height these have reached; introduced to European parks in the nineteenth century, it became one of the standard conifers for an avenue meant to impress. One of the three, in the cemetery car park, was measured at 100 years old in 2011 and classified that June, with a trunk four metres seventeen around. Its two companions at the main entrance, girths of 4.10 and 4.47 metres, were added to the classification later and were never separately dated, though their size suggests the same generation rather than a younger planting. A cedar planted at a cemetery gate a century ago was a statement about permanence, evergreen and famously long-lived, standing over a place built for the opposite. It has mostly kept the promise: all three are alive and, unlike the graves around them, still growing.