|78 JUNIPERUS OCCIDENTALIS. 



its gracefully pendulous and symmetrically branched sprays of the 

 brightest green should render it an attractive plant for the 

 Conservatory and Winter Garden. 



Juniperus occidentalis. 



A tree with a straight trunk 15 25 feet in height and 2 3 feet 

 in diameter with long, stout, spreading branches; occasionally much 

 smaller with a more slender trunk and shorter branches, and "on 

 rocky slopes towards the northern limits of its range, shrubby witli 

 many short, erect or semi-prostrate stems."* Branchlets stout and 

 covered with thin red-brown bark, sub-distichous and alternate, the 

 herbaceous shoots pinnately ramified and emitting a faint fetid odour 

 when bruised. Leaves scale-like, in decussate pairs, ovate, sub-acute, 

 with denticulate margins, concrescent or closely appresse'd and imbricated, 

 glandular, dull pale green. " Staminate flowers about an eighth of an inch 

 long with twelve eighteen broadly ovate, rounded acute anther scales." 

 Fruits sub-globose, 0'25 O35 inch in diameter, with a thick blue-black 

 epidermis coated with a glaucous bloom and enclosing two three seeds. 



Juniperus occidentalis, Hooker, W. Fl. Bor. Anier. II. 166 (1840). Endlicher, 

 Synops Conif. 26 (1847). Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 40. Paiiatore, D. C. 

 Prodr. XVI. 489. Hoopes, Evergreens, 299 (exclu. syns.). Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 

 162 (in part). Brewer and Watson, Bot. Califor II. 113. Macoun, Cat. Canad. 

 Plants, 461. Beissner, Nadelholzk. 128. Masters in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 

 213 (exclu. syn. J. pyriformis}. Sargent, Silva N. Anier. X. 87, t. 521. 



J. dealbata, London, Encycl. of Trees, 1090 (1842). Carriere, Traite Conif. 

 ed. II 41. 



J. andina, Nuttall, Sylva, III. 95, t. 110 ; and ed. II. Vol. II 157. 



Juniperus occidentalis is a tree or shrub of high altitudes, growing 

 abundantly on the mountain slopes of Idaho, eastern Washington and 

 southwards along the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountains far into 

 California, and also the dry mountain ranges between the Sierra and 

 the Pacific coast range of northern Mexico, rarely descending below 

 6,000 feet. In these alpine regions it is often seen "standing like 

 a sentinel with its massive stem and few spreading branches 

 impervious to the fiercest gales ; it has such a hold on the ground, 

 and offers such resistance to the elements that it dies standing and 

 wastes insensibly out of existence." f In exposed situations it grows 

 very slowly but attains a great age ; in the rich sub-alpine moraines 

 it is a tall symmetrical tree, and towards its southern limits it 

 forms in places pure forests of considerable extent. 



The date of the first introduction of Juniperus occidentalis to the 

 British Pinetum cannot be determined, as it was for a long time 

 confused with J. californica. It is even now doubtful to which of 

 the two species the few plants under the name of /. occidentalis 

 that still linger alive in this country should be referred. 



Mention may here be made of two closely allied species or 

 geographical forms of Juniperus occidentalis. 



* Sargent, Silva of North America, Vol. X. p. 87. 

 t Muir, Mountains of California, ex Silva, loc. cit. 



