Tuesday 21 May Mulanje cedar (Widdringtonia whytei) What’s the
World’s Favourite Species?Find out here. Mulanje cedar fact file
- Find out more - Print factsheet Mulanje cedar description The
Mulanje cedar, declared the national tree of Malawi by the late
Malawi president Hastings Kamazu Banda (3) (5), is considered a
very valuable timber, important to socio-economic development
(6). It is a tall, impressive, wide-crowned forest tree with a
long straight trunk (4), often branchless up to a height of
about 21 meters, making it useful for timber (2). Like the other
three Widdringtonia species native to Africa, or ‘African
cypresses’, this tree is referred to as a ‘cedar’ (7), possibly
for the aromatic, cedar-like odour of its wood (2), but is
actually completely unrelated to true cedars (7). As with many
other species in the cypress family, Widdringtonia species have
different juvenile and adult foliage. While seedlings have
needle-like leaves arranged spirally around a stem, adults
possess scale-like leaves, a