there are a lot of beloved trees here in the south of france. olive, cypress, almond, fig, kermes oak, plane trees. but there aren’t many towering trees. everything here, including the citizenry, seems to reach a certain diminutive height, and then decide that it’s too hot to work on growing any bigger. but the atlas cedar is like a football linebacker who just walked into a first grade classroom. it looks as if it can’t quite understand how it got here, nor how it is that no one in the room even comes up to its belt buckle.

atlas cedar limb

autignac, france