JUNIPERUS. 165 



The most obvious distinguishing character of the Junipers consists 

 in the fruit being succulent, consolidated and slightly reduced in the 

 number of its parts. A subordinate distinguishing character is seen 

 in the ternate arrangement of the acicular leaves. 



The number of species has been variously estimated according to 

 the views of the authors who have described or enumerated them, 

 thus Carriere describes forty including several but doubtfully 

 admitted, Parlatore twenty-seven, Gordon thirty-six, and in the 

 " Genera Plantarum " Mr. Bentham estimated the number to be about 

 twenty-five.* But whatever may be the number of species, they are all 

 reducible to a series of types comparatively few in number, around 

 which the species may be grouped, but the species themselves or the 

 forms recognised as such are in several cases separated from each 

 other by little else than geographical position. The genus admits 

 of a division into two well-marked sections thus distinguished : 



OXYCEDRI. Leaves homomorphic, acicular or awl-shaped, more or less 

 spreading and arranged in whorls of three. Flowers mostly dioecious, 

 solitary and axillary. Fruits relatively large and containing three seeds 

 or fewer by abortion. 



SAJBIN.E. Leaves dimorphic, acicular or scale-like, the latter always 

 arranged in decussate pairs on fertile branches and on adult plants. 

 Flowers terminal on short lateral branches of the preceding year. 

 Fruits relatively small and containing for the most part a single seed. 

 Endlicher constituted the Syrian Juniper, /. drupacea, a distinct 

 section under the name of Caryocedrus on account chiefly of the seeds 

 being coalescent in the centre of the fruit, f Practically this species 

 may be included in the Oxycedri. 



The Junipers inhabit both the eastern and western continents from 

 the Arctic regions to the verge of the Torrid zone ; in Asia including 

 China and Japan in the east and Persia and Asia Minor in the 

 west; in Africa, part of the Mediterranean littoral, the Canary Islands, 

 and an outlying species in Abyssinia (J. procera) ; in America 

 spreading southwards far into Mexico and into the West India 

 Islands. In places they cover large areas unmixed with other 

 vegetation, as in the arid region between the Rocky Mountains and 

 the Sierra Nevada and on the north-west Himalaya at the highest 

 vertical limit of arborescent vegetation up to 15,000 feet above sea- 

 level. 



The economic value of the Junipers is not very great. Where they 

 attain a timber-like size, the wood is light, fragrant, close-grained and 

 of a reddish brown colour as that of /. virginiana and /. bermudiana 



* Traite General des Coniferes, ed II. (1867). De Candolle's Prodromus, Vol. XVI. (1868). 

 The Pinetum, ed. II. (1875). Genera Plantarum, Vol. Ill (1881). No genus in the 

 Conifers stands in more urgent need of revision than Juniperus ; the task, however, is an 

 exceedingly difficult one in the absence of living fruiting specimens of many of the species 

 which, owing chiefly to climatic causes, cannot be cultivated in the open ground in this 

 -country. 



t Synopsis Coniferamm, p. 8. As no fruits of Juniperus drupacea are produced in this 

 country, the author has not had an opportunity of verifying this. 



