A tree, often 200° high, with a tall trunk frequently 12° in diameter above its abruptly enlarged base, a spire-like head of small horizontal or pendulous branches clothed with remote flat spray frequently 6′—8′ long. Bark often 10′ thick at the base of old trees and 3′—4′ thick on smaller stems, dark reddish brown, with 2 distinct layers, the inner ⅛′—¼′ thick, darker, more compact, and firmer than the outer, divided into great broad-based rounded ridges separated on the surface into small thick closely appressed scales. Wood light, hard, strong, very close-grained, abounding in fragrant resin, durable, easily worked, light yellow, or almost white, with hardly distinguishable sapwood; largely manufactured into lumber used for the interior finish and flooring of buildings, railway-ties, fence-posts, and boat and shipbuilding, and on the Pacific coast almost exclusively for matches. The resin is a powerful diuretic.
Distribution. Usually scattered in small groves from the shores of Coos Bay, southwestern Oregon, south to the mouth of the Klamath River, California, ranging inland usually for about thirty miles; near Waldorf, in Josephine County, Oregon, on the slopes of the Siskiyou Mountains, and on the southern flanks of Mt. Shasta, California; most abundant north of Rogue River on the Oregon coast and attaining its largest size on the western slopes of the Coast Range foothills, forming between Point Gregory and the mouth of the Coquille River a nearly continuous forest belt twenty miles long.
Often cultivated with the innumerable forms originated in nurseries, in the middle Atlantic states and California, in all the temperate countries of Europe, and in New Zealand.
13. JUNIPERUS L. Juniper.
Pungent aromatic trees or shrubs, with usually thin shreddy bark, soft close-grained durable wood, slender branches, and scaly or naked buds. Leaves sessile, in whorls of 3, persistent for many years, convex on the lower side, concave and stomatiferous above, linear-subulate, sharp-pointed, without glands (Oxycedrus); or scale-like, ovate, opposite in pairs or ternate, closely imbricated, appressed and adnate to the branch, glandular or eglandular on the back, becoming brown and woody on the branch, but on young plants and vigorous shoots often free and awl-shaped (Sabina). Flowers minute, diœcious, axillary or terminal on short axillary branches from buds formed the previous autumn on branches of the year; the male solitary, oblong-ovoid, with numerous stamens decussate or in 3’s, their filaments enlarged into ovate or peltate yellow scale-like connectives bearing near the base 2—6 globose pollen-sacs; the female ovoid, surrounded at the base by many minute scale-like bracts persistent and unchanged under the fruit, composed of 2—6 opposite or ternate pointed scales alternate with or bearing on their inner face at the base on a minute ovuliferous scale 1 or 2 ovules. Fruit a berry-like succulent fleshy blue, blue-black, or red strobile formed by the coalition of the flower-scales, inclosed in a membranaceous skin covered with a glaucous bloom, ripening during the first, second, or rarely during the third season, smooth or marked by the ends of the flower-scales, or by the pointed tips of the ovules, closed, or open at the top and exposing the apex of the seeds. Seeds 1—12, ovoid, acute or obtuse, terete or variously angled, often longitudinally grooved by depressions caused by the pressure of resin-cells in the flesh of the fruit, smooth or roughened and tuberculate, chestnut-brown, marked below by the large conspicuous usually 2-lobed hilum; seed-coat of 2 layers, the outer thick and bony, the inner thin, membranaceous or crustaceous; cotyledons 2, or 4—6, about as long as the superior radicle.
Juniperus is widely scattered over the northern hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to the highlands of Mexico, Lower California, and the West Indies in the New World, and to the Azores and Canary Islands, northern Africa, Abyssinia, the mountains of east tropical Africa, Sikkim, central China, Formosa, Japan and the Bonin Islands in the Old World. About thirty-five species are now distinguished. Of the exotic species cultivated in the United States the most common are European forms of Juniperus communis L. with fastigiate branches, and dwarf forms of the European Juniperus Sabina L., and of Juniperus chinensis L.
Juniperus is the classical name of the Juniper.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Flowers axillary; stamens decussate; ovules 3, alternate with the scales of the flower, their tips persistent on the fruit; seeds usually 3; leaves ternate, linear-lanceolate, prickle-pointed, jointed at the base, eglandular, dark yellow-green, channeled, stomatose, and glaucous above; fruit maturing in the third year, subglobose, bright blue, covered with a glaucous bloom; buds scaly (Oxycedrus).1. [J. communis.] Flowers terminal on short axillary branchlets; stamens decussate or in 3’s; ovules in the axils of small fleshy scales often enlarged and conspicuous on the fruit; seeds 1—12; leaves ternate or opposite, mostly scale-like, crowded, generally closely appressed, free and awl-shaped on vigorous shoots and young plants; buds naked (Sabina). Fruit red or reddish brown. Bark of the trunk separating into long thin persistent scales; fruit maturing in one season. Leaves closely appressed to the branchlet, obtusely pointed. Leaves conspicuously glandular-pitted, ternate or opposite; fruit red, subglobose, ¼′ in diameter.2. [J. Pinchotii] (C, H). Leaves eglandular or slightly glandular; fruit reddish brown. Leaves ternate, rarely opposite; fruit short-oblong, ¼′—½′ in diameter.3. [J. californica] (G). Leaves opposite, rarely ternate; fruit subglobose, ⅛′—¼′, in one form ¾′ in diameter.4. [J. utahensis] (F, G). Leaves not closely appressed, spreading at the apex, long-pointed, glandular or eglandular; fruit subglobose, ⅓′—½′ in diameter.5. [J. flaccida] (L). Bark of the trunk divided into thick nearly square plates; leaves eglandular or occasionally glandular-pitted; fruit subglobose to short-oblong, ½′ in diameter, ripening at the end of its second season.6. [J. pachyphlæa] (H). Fruit blue or blue-black, with resinous juicy flesh, subglobose to short-oblong, 1/12′—⅓′ in diameter; seeds, 1—4; cotyledons 2. Leaves denticulately fringed, opposite or ternate; fruit maturing in one season. Branchlets about 1/12′ in diameter; leaves acute, conspicuously glandular; fruit short-oblong, ¼′—⅓′ in diameter; seeds 2 or 3.7. [J. occidentalis] (B, G). Branchlets not more than 1/24′ in diameter; leaves usually ternate; fruit short-oblong. Seeds 1 or rarely 2, pale chestnut-brown, obtuse, prominently ridged; leaves acute or acuminate, usually glandular.8. [J. monosperma] (F). Seeds 1 or 2, dark chestnut-brown, acute, obscurely ridged; leaves obtusely pointed, often eglandular.9. [J. mexicana] (C). Leaves naked on the margins, mostly opposite, glandular or eglandular; fruit subglobose. Fruit ripening at the end of the first season. Fruit ¼′—⅓′ in diameter; seeds 1 or 2, rarely 3 or 4; leaves acute or acuminate; branches spreading or erect.10. [J. virginiana] (A, C). Fruit 1/12′—⅙′ in diameter; seeds 1 or 2; leaves acute; branches usually pendulous.11. [J. lucayana] (C). Fruit ripening at the end of the second season, ¼′—⅓′ in diameter; seeds 1 or 2; leaves acute or acuminate.12. [J. scopulorum] (B, F).