Cedrus deodara deodar cedar

Deodar cedars (Cedrus deodara) line Pine Avenue, the path to the Mausoleum. Sairus Patel, 1 Jun 2015

This tallest of the cedars, most often rising as a single soaring trunk, is also the most graceful, owing to its drooping leader and pendent branch tips, and to the relaxed, elongated needles that impart a general softness and fluffiness to its crown. Despite its Himalayan home at elevations of 4,000–10,000 feet, it has become one of the most popular ornamentals in much of the West. Once established locally it can endure without irrigation even in the most unforgiving settings, highway cloverleafs among them.

Deodar comes from Sanskrit deva-daru, timber of the gods: deva, cognate with “Deus,” and daru, which gives us the very word “tree.” A potent name indeed. An important timber in India, the deodar is found in Kipling’s Kim, where the boy protagonist conceals his Hindu garb in a depot of fragrant logs floated down from the Himalayas, and in the ancient epic Ramayana, where the monkey host is commanded to comb its forests for the abducted Sita.

At Stanford, solemn deodars overhang Pine Avenue, the vaulted approach to the Mausoleum. (The avenue, initially laid out in 1882–83, was first planted with double rows of Monterey pine and extended as far as the Peter Coutts estate, now near Escondido Village.) A single tall Atlas cedar nearest the Mausoleum is the only exception to the theme; its partner once stood across the avenue from it but was lost in 2023 and replaced by a deodar. Nearby can be found Himalayan cypress, which coexists with deodar in its native haunts. Just north of the Mausoleum is a monumental, luxuriant deodar said to date from 1889; its immense, low limbs turn sharply upward, becoming tree-like reiterations. Beside it stands a dwarf form, likely of the same vintage, that has nonetheless reached great size. Another dwarf with pendulous branchlets is between Old Union and Tresidder Union, about 40 feet east of a tall deodar.

Several grand cedars at Burnham Pavilion have a bluish cast to their needles. One on the Galvez Street side has a sign dating it to 1915. These have been denoted as deodars on lists of significant campus trees, yet all but the rightmost in front appear closer to Atlas cedar. A deep green deodar towers behind the pair of Atlases in Dohrmann Grove at Jane Stanford Way and Lasuen Mall; others are across the way at Lathrop Library, where they have self-seeded on the slope. Six deodars are south of Meyer Green. A trio with cream-yellow new growth is at the end of the driveway at 836 Lathrop Drive.