102 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



I. 7. The Juniper. Juniperus. L. 



The junipers are evergreen trees or shrubs, found in all quar- 

 ters of the globe. They are distinguished by their fruit, which 

 is a three-sided, berry-like galbule, made up of several thickened, 

 fleshy, coalescing ovaries, and usually covered with a bluish 

 bloom. The leaves are opposite, or in whorls, narrow, stiff and 

 pointed, sometimes minute and scale-like. The wood is more 

 or less aromatic, and is very durable. The berries are employ- 

 ed in medicine as a diuretic, and to give its peculiar flavor 

 to gin. 



The species in Massachusetts are, 1. The Red Cedar, which 

 is a small tree ; and 2. The Common Juniper, a prostrate 

 shrub. 



Sp. 1. The Red Cedar. Juniperus Virginiana. L. 



Figured in Michaux ; Sylva, III, Plate 155. 



By Bigelow ; Med. Bot. Ill, Plate 45. 



And in Loudon's Arboretum ; VIII, Plate 298. 



This is usually a ragged looking tree. In the neighbor- 

 hood of Boston, it is commonly found on dry, rocky hills, 

 where it sometimes attains the height of thirty or thirty -five 

 feet. When it grows by itself on the open ground, it throws 

 out several large limbs close to the earth, which, extending 

 horizontally a few feet, and sometimes taking root, sweep up- 

 wards and often almost equal the main stem, forming together 

 what seems to be a clump of small trees rather than a single 

 tree. Surrounded by other trees in a wood, it has a smooth, 

 clear trunk for twelve or fifteen feet, and a handsome spiry 

 head. On the rocks it assumes every variety of form, round- 

 headed, irregular, or cone-shaped, sometimes not without 

 beauty. 



The red cedar is distinguished from the white and the arbor 

 vitse, the only trees which it resembles, by having its fruit in the 

 form of a berry, and its leaves exhibiting but slightly a ten- 

 dency to arrange themselves in a plane. The trunk is straight, 

 rapidly decreasing, and full of branches. It is often deformed 



