Leaves usually opposite, acute or acuminate or occasionally obtuse, rounded and glandular or eglandular on the back, about 1/16′ long, dark blue-green or glaucous (var. glauca Carr.), at the north turning russet or yellow-brown during the winter, beginning in their third season to grow hard and woody, and remaining two or three years longer on the branches, on young plants and vigorous branchlets linear-lanceolate, long-pointed, light yellow-green, without glands, ½′—¾′ long. Flowers: diœcious or very rarely monœcious: male with 10 or 12 stamens, their connectives rounded and entire, with 4 or occasionally 5 or 6 pollen-sacs; scales of the female flower violet color, acute and spreading, becoming obliterated from the fruit. Fruit subglobose, ¼′—⅓′ in diameter, pale green when fully grown, dark blue and covered with a glaucous bloom at maturity, with a firm skin, thin sweetish resinous flesh, and 1 or 2 or rarely 3 or 4 seeds; seeds acute and occasionally apiculate at apex, ⅙′—⅛′ long, with a comparatively small 2-lobed hilum, and 2 cotyledons.
A tree, occasionally 100° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, often lobed and eccentric, and frequently buttressed toward the base, generally not more than 40°—50° tall, with short slender branches horizontal on the lower part of the tree, erect above, forming a narrow compact pyramidal head, in old age usually becoming broad and round-topped or irregular, and slender branchlets terete after the disappearance of the leaves and covered with close dark brown bark tinged with red or gray; on exposed cliffs on the coast of Maine, sometimes only a few inches high with long branches forming broad dense mats. Bark ⅛′—¼′ thick, light brown tinged with red, and separated into long narrow scales fringed on the margins, and persistent for many years. Wood light, close-grained, brittle, not strong, dull red, with thin nearly white sapwood, very fragrant, easily worked; largely used for posts, the sills of buildings, the interior finish of houses, the lining of closets and chests for the preservation of woolens against the attacks of moths, and largely for pails and other small articles of wooden ware. A decoction of the fruit and leaves is used in medicine, and oil of red cedar distilled from the leaves and wood as a perfume.
Distribution. Dry gravelly slopes and rocky ridges, often immediately on the seacoast, from southern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to the coast of Georgia, the interior of southern Alabama and Mississippi, and westward to the valley of the lower Ottawa River, southern Michigan, eastern North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, and eastern Texas, not ascending the mountains of New England and New York nor the high southern Alleghanies; in middle Kentucky and Tennessee, and northern Alabama and Mississippi, covering great areas of low rolling limestone hills with nearly pure forests of small bushy trees.
Often cultivated, in several forms, in the northern and eastern states as an ornamental tree and occasionally in the gardens of western and central Europe.
11. [Juniperus lucayana] Britt. Red Cedar.
Juniperus barbadensis Sarg., not L.
Leaves usually opposite, narrow, acute, or gradually narrowed above the middle and acuminate, marked on the back by conspicuous oblong glands. Flowers opening in early March: male elongated, ⅛′ to nearly ¼′ long, with 10 or 12 stamens, their connectives rounded, entire, and bearing usually 3 pollen-sacs: female with scales gradually narrowed above the middle, acute at apex, and obliterated from the ripe fruit. Fruit subglobose to short-oblong, dark blue, covered when ripe with a glaucous bloom, about 1/24′ in diameter, with a thin skin, sweet resinous flesh, and 1 or 2 seeds; seeds acute, prominently ridged.
A tree, sometimes 50° high, with a trunk occasionally 2° in diameter, small branches erect when the tree is crowded in the forest, spreading when it has grown in open ground and forming a broad flat-topped head often 30° or 40° in diameter, long thin secondary branches erect at the top of the tree and pendulous below, and pendulous branchlets about 1/24′ in diameter, becoming light red-brown or ashy gray at the end of four or five years after the disappearance of the leaves. Bark thin, light red-brown, separating into long thin scales. Wood light, close, straight-grained, fragrant, dull red; formerly exclusively used in the manufacture of the best lead pencils.
Distribution. Inundated river swamps from southern Georgia, southward to the shores of the Indian River, Florida, and on the west coast of Florida from the northern shores of Charlotte Harbor to the valley of the Apalachicola River, often forming great thickets under the shade of larger trees; along streams and creeks in low woods near Houston, Harris County, and Milano, Milano County, Texas (E. J. Palmer); common in the Bahamas, San Domingo, eastern Cuba, and on the mountains of Jamaica and Antigua.