The Cedar of Lebanon grows chiefly along the Mediterranean coast of southern and southwestern Anatolia, in Lebanon, where it is the national emblem, and at high elevations of the Jebel Ansariye in Syria. It is an evergreen tree reaching 30 to 50 metres in height and can live over 1,000 years, developing a characteristically flat, spreading crown with age. Even freshly cut, its wood carries an aromatic, resin-rich scent. Lebanon's original range has shrunk today, through millennia of overuse, to just 2,000 hectares — already the biblical prophet Ezekiel warned against the excessive deforestation of the cedar groves. Today the surviving stands in Lebanon enjoy strict protection, and several nature reserves — most notably the "Cedars of God" (Arz el-Rab) near Bsharri — preserve the last ancient giants as a national symbol that still graces the Lebanese flag.

As the lion was among animals, so the cedar was the "prince of trees." To build his temple, King Solomon is said to have sent tens of thousands of Israelites to Lebanon to assist King Hiram of Tyre with logging; the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and later the Greeks used cedar wood for shipbuilding, and the 67-metre sacrificial ship of Ramesses III was built of Lebanese cedar. Legendary too is the journey of Wenamun to Byblos to procure cedar wood for the barque of Amun-Ra. Already in Babylon under Hammurabi and in ancient Egypt, methods were known for extracting essential oil from its heartwood, used, according to Herodotus and Diodorus, among other things for embalming the dead. According to biblical symbolism, the crossbeam at the head of Christ's cross was made of cedar wood; in medieval Christian iconography the cedar is associated with the Mother of God, and to the prophets it symbolized permanence. The mythical bird Benu, forerunner of the Greek phoenix, which builds its nest of balsam and frankincense in order to burn and be reborn renewed, is likewise associated with the cedar. Burned as incense, Lebanese cedarwood releases a dry, resinous, balsamic scent with a faint, almost smoky depth, traditionally associated with permanence, dignity, and the long memory of empires long past.

Burned as incense, Cedrus libani releases a warm, resinous-woody scent of great depth, calmer and earthier than common cedarwood. "A precious cedar is growing at the crown prince," wrote the 18th-century poet Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart. Since antiquity, the Cedar of Lebanon has been associated with permanence, dignity, and spiritual grandeur — qualities that carry through into its incense character too: composed, weighty, and quietly majestic.