JUNIPERUS VIRGINI ANA. 195 



The geographical range of Juniperus virginiana is one of the most 

 extensive of the genus ; it may be stated in general terms to 

 extend in a meridional direction from the great lakes of North 

 America and westwards of them from about the 50th parallel to 

 the Gulf States and Florida, and longitudinally from the Atlantic 

 coast to the Eocky Mountains ; and even crossing these at its 

 northern limit, it spreads through southern Columbia to Vancouver's 

 Island. Within this area occur the most diverse phases of climate, 

 from the sub-arctic winters of Nova Scotia and the Lake region to 

 the tropical summers of the Gulf States ; from the arid plains of 

 Utah and Nevada where the annual rainfall rarely reaches ten inches 

 to the low-lying tracts of the south-eastern States where it often 

 exceeds sixty inches. It is not surprising, therefore, that growing 

 spontaneously over half the North American continent, in widely different 

 soils, situations and aspects and also under extreme conditions of 

 climate, that Juniperus virginiana should be one of the most variable 

 of Conifers as regards habit and dimensions. In the Atlantic States 

 it is usually scattered over dry slopes and rocky ridges ; on the 

 coast often stunted and with short tough branches that resist 

 the fiercest gales ; further inland, as in Kentucky, Tennessee and 

 adjacent States, it is a medium-sized tree covering large areas with 

 nearly pure forests ; in the humid and hot climate of the eastern 

 Gulf States it attains its greatest dimensions, becoming a tall wide- 

 topped tree of very elegant aspect ; towards its western limits and 

 on the Rocky Mountains it is often reduced to a low bushy 

 shrub.* 



According to Aitonf Juniperus virginiana was cultivated by Evelyn 

 prior to 1664, the. date of publication of the first edition of the "Sylva"; 

 it was thence one of the first American trees introduced into British 

 gardens. Since that period it has been in constant use for ornamental 

 planting, and prior to the discovery and introduction of the north-west 

 American and east Asiatic Cupressinese, much more extensively than at 

 present. Its average growth in Great Britain is not more than from 

 10 to 15 feet in the first ten years from the seed, and the average height 

 .attained by it is rarely more than 30 to 40 feet, so that the tree does not 

 often attain a timber-like size except in deep rich soils that could be 

 more profitably cropped with other vegetation. Under cultivation the 

 Red Cedar is very polymorphous, of which every seed bed furnishes 

 abundant instances, but the peculiar form which characterises individuals 

 frequently disappears with age. M. Carriere was of opinion that this 

 variation is an effect of the sexuality of the plants, and certainly there 



* Silva of North America, X. 94. Professor Sargent has since separated the Junipers 

 of the Rocky Mountains and of the Gulf States from Ju/nipyrus virginiana, constituting 

 the former a new species under the name of J. Scopulorum and referring the latter to 

 the Linnean J. barbadensis. 



t Hortus Kewensis, ed. II. Vol. V. p. 414. 



