164 JUNIPERUS. 



Scales of strobiles ascending, oblong or broadly 



clavate. 

 Scales 8 12, more or less imbricated; seeds 



winged or wingless - 4. Thuia. 



Scales 4 6, valvate, the middle or largest pair 

 only fertile ; seeds with an oblique wing at 

 the apex - 5. Libocedrus. 



JUNIPERUS. 



Linnaeus, Sp. Plant. II. 1038 (1753). Endlicher, Synops. Conif. 7 (1847). Parlatore> 

 D. C. Prodr. XVI. 475 (1868). Bentham and Hooker, Gen. Plant. III. 427 (1881). 

 Eichler in Engler and Prantl, Nat. Pfl. Fam. 101 (1887). Masters in Journ. Linn. Soc. 

 XXX. 12 (1892). 



The Junipers are evergreen, medium-sized, or low trees of pyramidal 

 or fastigiate habit, but in old age often with rounded or flattened 

 tops and irregular in outline ; or bushy shrubs of spreading habit, 

 occasionally quite prostrate. Their habit is greatly modified by 

 climate and locality, and in mountainous regions by altitude and 

 aspect, so that the same species which are arborescent in the warmer 

 and more favoured districts are reduced to prostrate shrubs at their 

 northern limit or highest vertical range ; instances of these extreme 

 forms in habit occur in Juniperus communis, J. excelsa, J. recurva,. 

 J. virginiana and others. The foliage is dimorphic, consisting either 

 of pungent acicular or awl-shaped leaves in whorls of three, or of 

 small scale-like leaves closely imbricated or concrescent in decussate 

 pairs. In some species as J. communis the acicular foliage is 

 constant ; in others, as J. excelsa, J. virginiana, it prevails up to ten- 

 twelve or more years when it gradually gives place to the smaller 

 scale-like leaves ; in others again, as J. chinensis, both forms of leaves, 

 are present from a very early age ; in the typical J. Sabina, at least. 

 in Great Britain and in a few other species, the scale-like leaves, 

 only are present. 



The essential characters of the genus may be technically expressed 

 thus : 



Flowers monoecious or dioecious, the latter predominating, axillary or 

 terminal on short lateral branchlets of the preceding year. 



Staminate flowers solitary, rarely clustered, on short footstalks 

 sheathed by a few minute involucral bracts, light yellow. Stamens 

 numerous in decussate pairs or whorls of three, the scale-like connective 

 bearing on the inner surface two six anther cells. 



Ovuliferous flowers composed of two three series of scales in opposite 

 pairs or whorls of three, and bearing at the base of the inner side, 

 one two erect ovules. 



Fruits (galbuli) maturing the second year, or later, composed of 

 mucronate, concrescent fleshy scales that are smooth or tuberculose,, 

 bluish black or brown in colour, and bearing two live seeds. 



