398 THE JUNIPER. 



Long Island Sound the Junipers are large and thrifty 

 trees. 



On our barren hills, near the coast, where they are so 

 common as to be the most conspicuous feature of certain 

 regions, they display a great variety of shapes and gro- 

 tesque peculiarities of outline. Yet the normal shape of 

 this tree is a perfect spire. When it presents this form, 

 it is, in the true sense of the word, a beautiful object. 

 Even its rusty-green foliage gives variety to the hues of 

 the landscape, and heightens by contrast the verdure of 

 other trees. This effect is the more remarkable at mid- 

 summer, when the green of the different trees has become 

 nearly uniform in its shades. At this time the mixture 

 of the duller tints of the Juniper is very agreeable. 



The Juniper is very full of branches, irregularly dis- 

 posed at a small angle with the trunk, forming an exceed- 

 ingly dense mass of foliage. A singular habit of this 

 tree is that of producing tufts of branches with foliage re- 

 sembling that of the prostrate Juniper, as if a branch of 

 that shrub had been ingrafted upon it. The berries, which 

 are abundant in the fertile trees, are of a light bluish 

 color, and afford a winter repast to many species of birds, 

 particularly the waxwing. The branches, when their ex- 

 tremities are brought into contact with the soil, readily 

 take root. Hence we sometimes find a clump of small 

 trees gathered like children around the parent tree. 



The trunk of this tree diminishes so rapidly in size as 

 to lose its value for many purposes to which the wood 

 is adapted ; but this rapid diminution in diameter is one 

 of its picturesque properties, and the cause in part of that 

 spiry form which is so much admired in this tree. The 

 lateral branches, always inserted obliquely, diminish in 

 size proportionally with the decrease of the trunk. The 

 Juniper is first discovered on Cedar Island in Lake Cham- 

 plain, and, south of this latitude, extends all along the 



