Simple trick to tell species apart

I HAVE A friend who lives in a small Georgian house.

Actually he’s a ‘country neighbour’ because he lives about 10km away. Growing in the lawn in front of his house is a magnificent Cedar of Lebanon.

It’s a massive, flat-topped tree with a huge trunk from which great side branches emerge low down, arching upwards and bending down again towards the ground. The dark green needles are arranged in tiers so that, from a distance, the foliage seems to be arranged in a series of plates.