FIR TRIBE 199 



This shrub sends out a number of tough branches, covered with a smooth 

 brown or reddish bark, slightly tinged with purple, while the bark of the 

 trunk is greyish-brown, cracked and scaly. The stiflF evergreen leaves grow 

 in threes round the branches, and are dark bright green beneath, and grey on 

 the upper surface. Their acute points deserve Spenser's description : — 



" Swete is the Juniper, but sliarpe his bough." 



The small green barren flowers appear in May, in little catkins, among 

 the axils of the leaves, and are on different plants from the few-flowered 

 fertile cones. The berries, which are about as large as currants, appear one 

 summer, and, continuing green until the following season, then ripen into a 

 dark-purple hue, covered, like the sloe, Avith a bluish-white powder or bloom. 

 They are not juicy, but spongy ; they have an aromatic flavour, and contain 

 three oblong seeds. These fruits are useful, not alone to the wild bird of 

 moor or fell, but also to man. When crushed, they yield an essential oil ; 

 and a very pleasant and wholesome beer, called genem-ette, is made by cottagers 

 in some parts of France with barley and Juniper-berries. Hollands and 

 English gin were formerly flavoured with them, and they once formed an 

 important article of commerce among the Dutch ; but Professor Burnet 

 remarks of the last-named liquor, that it is " wholly unconscious of their 

 presence," the British manufacturers having substituted oil of turpentine. 

 The berries yield, on boiling, a large amount of sugar ; and Linnaeus mentions 

 that a decoction of these fruits, when fermented, forms a common beverage 

 among the Swedes, who still eat Juniper-berries at their meals, in the form of 

 a conserve. Our fathers not only employed them as a spice to their dishes, 

 but praised their medicinal powers. " This admirable solar shrub," says one 

 of our old writers, " is scarce to be paralleled for its virtues. The Iberries 

 arc hot in the third degree, and dry but in the first, being a most admirable 

 counter-poison, and as great a resister of the pestilence as any grows : they 

 are excellent good against the bitings of venomous beasts." Gerarde also 

 adds his testimony to their worth, and says, "Divers in Bohemia do take, 

 instead of other drink, the water wherein these berries have been steeped, 

 who live in wonderful good health." The berries were much recommended 

 by physicians to be eaten ; and ten or a dozen every morning, fasting, was an 

 old prescription for diseases of the lungs. They doubtless possess stimu- 

 lating properties. In many Continental countries both the fruits and the 

 wood of the Juniper are burned in hospitals to render the air wholesome ; 

 and the ancients were wont to throw the berries on the funeral pile. They 

 are still used in German villages instead of spices, and for the purpose of 

 flavouring the saner kraut ; and so abundant is the shrub on many moorlands 

 of Germany, that the flesh of the heath-cock is said to be sometimes strongly 

 flavoured with Juniper, and to be quite distasteful. 



The wood of the Juniper is aromatic, and so pleasant is the odour of the 

 young twigs, that the housewife in Norway strews them over her floor, as 

 our country people would strew sand. In Evelyn's time spits for meat, and 

 spoons, were made of this wood, and were thought to impart a wholesome 

 property as well as an agreeable flavour to meat. The old notion of the 

 ancients that the burning of Juniper-wood expelled evil spirits from the 



