44 = JUNIPERUS COMMUNIS. 
are dead and decayed. It seldom rises more than 
‘two or three feet from the ground. 
The genus Juniperus belongs to the class 
Diecia, order Monadelphia, and natural order 
Conifere of Linnzeus and Jussieu. It is distin- 
guished by an ovate ament with peltate scales, 
which, in the barren flowers, are whorled in threes, 
with from two to four anthers ; in the fertile ones 
opposite. Berry three seeded—In the common 
Juniper, the leaves are ternate, Mt muucro- 
nate, larger than the berry. 
The Juniper is with us always a shrub, never 
rising into a tree. The tips of the branches are 
smooth and angular. The leaves grow in threes 
and are linear-acerose, sharply mucronate, shining 
green on their lower surface, but with a broad 
glaucous line through the centre of the upper. 
These leaves, however, are always resupinate, and 
turn their upper surface toward the ground, 
The barren flowers | grow in small axillary aments, 
with roundish, acute, stipitate scales, inclosing 
several anthers. The fertile flowers, growing on 
a separate shrub, haye a small, three parted calyx 
growing to the germ ; and three styles. The fruit 
is a fleshy, roundish, oblong berry, of a dark 
purplish colour, formed of the germ and conflu- 
ent calyx, marked with three prominences or 
