Next to the oak may be mentioned the walnut, which grows to a great size in sheltered positions in the Lebanon range, both upon the eastern and upon the western flank;[219] the poplar, which is found both in the mountains[220] and in the low country, as especially about Beyrout;[221] the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis), of which there are large woods in Carmel, Lebanon, and Bargylus,[222] while in Casius there is an enormous forest of them;[223] and the carob (Ceratonia siliqua), or locust-tree, a dense-foliaged tree of a bright lucid green hue, which never grows in clumps or forms woods, but appears as an isolated tree, rounded or oblong, and affords the best possible shade.[224] In the vicinity of Tyre are found also large tamarisks, maples, sumachs, and acacias.[225]

But the tree which is the glory of Phoenicia, and which was by far the most valuable of all its vegetable productions, is, of course, the cedar.  Growing to an immense height, and attaining an enormous girth, it spreads abroad its huge flat branches hither and thither, covering a vast space of ground with its “shadowing shroud,"[226] and presenting a most majestic and magnificent appearance.  Its timber may not be of first-rate quality, and there is some question whether it was really used for the masts of their ships by the Phoenicians,[227] but as building material it was beyond a doubt most highly prized, answering sufficiently for all the purposes required by architectural art, and at the same time delighting the sense of smell by its aromatic odour.  Solomon employed it both for the Temple and for his own house;[228] the Assyrian kings cut it and carried it to Nineveh;[229] Herod the Great used it for the vast additions that he made to Zerubbabel’s temple;[230] it was exported to Egypt and Asia Minor; the Ephesian Greeks constructed of cedar, probably of cedar from Lebanon, the roof of their famous temple of Diana.[231] At present the wealth of Lebanon in cedars is not great, but the four hundred which form the grove near the source of the Kadisha, and the many scattered cedar woods in other places, are to be viewed as remnants of one great primeval forest, which originally covered all the upper slopes on the western side, and was composed, if not exclusively, at any rate predominantly, of cedars.[232] Cultivation, the need of fuel, and the wants of builders, have robbed the mountain of its primitive bright green vest, and left it either bare rock or terraced garden; but in the early times of Phoenicia, the true Lebanon cedar must undoubtedly have been its chief forest tree, and have stood to it as the pine to the Swiss Alps and the chestnut to the mountains of North Italy.