168. JUNIPERUS OCCIDENTALIS WESTERN JUNIPER. 47 



the ground and sending out wide-spreading, contorted branches. The 

 bark of trunk is of an ash-gray color, longitudinally fibrous, and 

 becoming in time very loose and shreddy. 



HABITAT. California, the plains and dry mountain slopes of the 

 coast ranges from San Francisco southward, along the western slopes 

 of the southern Sierra Nevadas and the foot-hills of the San Bernardino 

 Mountains. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood soft, light, not strong, with very 

 close grain, strongly odorous and very durable in contact with the 

 soil. It is of a light pinkish-brown color, with yellowish-white sap- 

 wood. Specific Gravity, 0.6282; Percentage of Ash, O.T5; Relative 

 Approximate Fuel Value, 0.6235; Weight of a Cubic Foot in 

 Pounds, 39.15. 



USES. The wood of this species is extensively used for fuel and 

 fencing in southern California, and the berries are said to be an 

 important article of food with the Indians, who eat them both fresh 

 and dried and ground into a flour. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not reported of this species, but doubt- 

 less would be found to be about the same as those of other species of 

 the genus, and mentioned of the J. Virginiana, Part I., pp. 75-76. 



168. JUNIPERUS OCCIDENTALIS, HOOK. 

 WESTERN JUNIPER, YELLOW CEDAR. 



Ger., Westlicher Wachholder; Fr., Genievre occidental; Sp., Enebro 



occidental. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Leaves arranged in threes, scale-like, thick, and 

 closely appressed, ovate, acute or acuminate at apex, with thin dentinculate 

 margins, rounded and conspicuously glandular pitted on the back, about in. 

 or less in length ; branchlets stout, reddish-brown after the leaves fall and 

 covered with loose papery scales. Flowers in short terminal aments, the stami- 

 nate about in. long with 12-18 thin ovate-orbicular, rounded or pointed denticu- 

 late-margined scales; pistillate aments with ovate acute spreading scales. 

 Fruit subglobose or oblong, - in. long, blue-back with abundant glaucous 

 bloom and bearing traces of the scales of the flower, with thin, dry resinous flesh 

 and two or three bony seeds about i in. in length, ovate-acute, deeply pitted or 

 grooved on the rounded outer side, flattened on the inner side, light brown and 

 marked below with a two-lobed hilum, cotyledons two. 



(The specific name occidentalis is the Latin for western.) 



The Western Juniper occasionally attains the height of 60 ft. (18 m.), 

 with long, straight trunk, perhaps 3 ft. in diameter (0.90 m.), but 

 commonly it is a lower tree, with short, thick trunk, sometimes 10 ft. 

 (3 m.) in diameter, and large wide-spreading branches. The bark of 



