The Temple Square Cedar of Lebanon

Temple Square's famous cedar is said to have arrived around 1949 in a suitcase, seven inches tall. The Deseret News told its story in 1995: the seedling came in the luggage of a Mrs. Petty of Sugar House and was planted in a corner of the square. Its top was later sheared off, and the gardeners trained a side branch up as a new leader. When the South Visitors' Center was built, the cedar was still marked for removal by oversight; a gardener, Peter Lassig, caught the mistake, and the architect, Emil Fetzer, stopped the crews. It was nearly lost again in 2020. As the Salt Lake Temple's seismic renovation began, crews removed many trees around the 1893 temple, and the church said a tall, 70-year-old Cedar of Lebanon would be kept, with great efforts to preserve it while they excavated around it. Utah's big tree register lists the state champion Cedar of Lebanon at the southeast corner of the temple, measured in 2019 at 20.1 metres tall, with a trunk 277 centimetres round and a crown 18.6 metres across. That is almost certainly the suitcase cedar, but no source we found names both together, so take the join as ours. The register measured it before the excavation, and we have no dated sighting since. The renovation is expected to finish by the end of 2026 and parts of the square have been closed during the work. If you see it, tell us how it came through.