JUNIPERS 191 



others). This doubling of the leaf character (called 

 dimorphic) may, at first sight, appear as not quite a 

 fair impost upon the intellectual department of the 

 student. One set of leaves he might regard as quite 

 a sufficient task upon his energies and capabilities. 



As it so happens, quite the contrary is the fact. 

 This habit turns out to be really a great convenience 

 in discerning the nature of the plant, and as between 

 it and a Cypress. When his practised eye observes 

 the unmistakable acicular leaves of the Juniper in 

 small branches, nestling among the mature foliage, 

 he at once dissociates from his mind any Cypress 

 confusion, and feels grateful to the members of the 

 Sabinse group that when they commence their age 

 of the sere and yellow they still retain, like many a 

 human prototype, the semblance of youth, and do 

 not at one bidden moment from the clock of Time 

 cast away all juvenile associations and youthful 

 reminders. Hereby they constitute a glorious ex- 

 ample to all lords and ladies of the higher creation, 

 in their life's progress towards the serener stages of 

 the Middle Ages. 



If we were to make a few general remarks on a few 

 of the Junipers perhaps most commonly seen amongst 

 us, we should venture the remark that probably of 

 the Sabinae, Virginiana, Chinensis, and Excelsa were 

 most likely to be met with in the more frequented 

 paths of life. The Virginiana is a tree and the 

 Sabina a shrub, or at most a shrub-like tree in its best 

 arborescent form, and as such distributes an unap- 

 preciated smell, and the J. Virginiana lacks any. 



The J. Excelsa from the Virginiana is a hard matter 

 to dissociate, very hard. The acicular foliage in the 

 case of J. Excelsa in a cultivated, not wild, state often 

 makes no show. The real difference is that the fruit 

 is larger and contains more seeds. But this is a 

 worked-out, and not one of those every-day apparent 



