166 



CONIFERS. [.Jumjyerm. 



r 



Hab. Newfoundland. Lake Huron, to the barren country of the Hudson Bay Co.'s territories, and on 

 the West Coast, as far as Sitcha. Bongard. Summit of Mount Rainier. Tolmie — /3. in the most exposed 

 and sterile situations. 



2. J.Sabina (L.); ramulorum tetragonorura foliis quadrifariam dense imbTicatis ovatis 



acutis V. acuminatis concavis seu subcarinatis dorso basin versus glandiila oblonga quan- 



doque obsoleta instructis; ramorum teretiuni foliis plerumqiie acerosis squamiformibus 



remotis appressis v. patulisj baccis nigro-pruinosis. Mich. Am. 2. p. 246. NutL—Ph. Am. 



2./?. 647.— J. Virginiana. L.—Mich. N. Am. Sylv. p. 221. t. 155. Ph. Am. 2. p. 647. 



Nutt~&. humilis ; procumbens.— J. Sabina. /3. m7/c/.— P^.— J. prostrata. Pers. Rich. 

 App. p. 38.— J. repens. NittL? 



Hab. Throughout Canada, to the Saskatchawan,— 0. in poor rocky soils, especially in the north. Dr 

 Richardson. In the Rocky Mountains. Lewis, Late Huron. Nuttall.—ln Eastern America Botanists 

 have enumerated five species of Savin-leaved Juniper ; X Sabina (which also abounds in Europe, and in 

 Northern Asia), J. Virginiana, J". Bermudiaiia, J. Barbadensis, and J, prostrata ; but I must confess 

 that among all the specimens I have received from various countries hicluded between the 53d and 32d 

 degrees of latitude, I can recognise only one species by any botanical characters, and that one differs in no 

 respect from the Europgean J. Sabina, to which I unhesitatingly refer it. If there are other species, I have 

 not seen them, and the descriptions of authors are so vague and unsatisfactory, that I have in vain sought for 

 distinguishing marks in their characters and observations. The leaves certainly differ considerably in different 

 specimens ; but not more so than they frequently do on one and the same individual. Thus. Bigelow observes 

 that (in J. Virginiana) "a singular variety appears in the young shoots, especially those which issue from 

 the base of the trees : this consists in an elongation of the leaves to five or six times their usual length, while 

 they become spreading, acerose, considerably remote from each other, and irregular in their insertion, being 

 cither opposite or ternate, so that they have been repeatedly mistaken for individuals of a different species." 

 He adds too, that the leaves of J. Virginiana resemble Savin in their medicinal properties.— I may here 

 observe that the Savin-leaved Junipers of the Old World are as unsatisfactorily characterized in books as 

 those of the New ; and equally demand a careful investigation of the Botanist. In all, upon the older 

 branches, the leaves are elongated, acerose, and distant where the shoots have been vigorous and lengthened, 

 short and blunt and compact, and giving a tessellated appearance, when the shoots are short and stunted.— 

 Again, with regard to the more usual form of the American species, J. Virginiana, as it is generally called, 

 (though the Linnsean character does not accord with it), we can understand, from its mode of growth, why 

 this plant, which in some situations is a tree 40 or 45 feet high, should in others become a small prostrate 

 shrub. Michaux remarks that " the most striking peculiarity in the vegetation of it is thafthe branches which 

 are numerous and close, spring near the earth, and spread horizontally, and that the lower limbs are, during 

 many years, as long as the body of the tree. The trunk decreases so rapidly that the largest stocks rarely 

 afford timber for ship-building of more than 1 1 feet in length."- Very far north, Dr Richardson tells us that 

 "It grows close to the ground, and sends out flabelliform branches 2 yards long, which are very ornamental 

 in thin rocky soils." 



3. J. occidentalis ; ramis ramulisque patentibus teretibus, foliis arete 4-fanam imbri- 

 catis subrotutulo-ovatis obtusis valde convexis paulo infra medium glandula oblonga con- 

 spicLia resiniflua notata— J. excelsa. Dougl mst.^Ph. Am. 2. p. 64T. {vix Bieb.) 



Hab. N. W. America. Banks of the waters in the Rocky Mountains. Lewis (in Ph.) Common on the 

 higher parts of the Columbia, at the base of the Roeky Mountains, where it attains a height of 60-80 feet, and 

 a diameter of from 2-3 feet. DoM^7as.— Mr Douglas' collection, in my possession, contains only two specimens 

 of this plant, without flowers or fruit. From the locality, there can scarcely be a doubt of its being the J. 



