CONIFERS 85 



Gregory and the mouth of the Coquille River a nearly continuous forest belt 

 twenty miles long. 



Often cultivated with the innumerable forms originated in nurseries, in the middle 

 Atlantic states and California, and in all the temperate countries of Europe. 



13. JUNIPERUS, L. Juniper. 



Pungent aromatic trees or shrubs, with usually thin shreddy bark, soft close-grained 

 durable wood, slender branches, and scaly or naked buds. Leaves sessile, in whorls 

 of 3, persistent for many years, convex on the lower side, concave and stomatiferous 

 above, linear-subulate, sharp-poiuted, without glands; or scale-like, ovate, opposite in 

 pairs or ternate, closely imbricated, appressed and aduate to the branch, glandular on 

 the back, becoming brown and woody on the branch, but on young plants and vigor- 

 ous shoots often free and awl-shaped. Flowers minute, dioecious, axillary or terminal 

 on short axillary branches from buds formed the previous autumn on branches of 

 the year; the staminate solitary, oblong-ovate, with numerous stamens decussate or 

 in 3's, their filaments enlarged into ovate or peltate yellow scale-like connectives 

 bearing near the base 2-6 globose pollen-sacs; the pistillate ovoid, surrounded at 

 the base by many minute scale-like bracts persistent and unchanged under the fruit, 

 composed of 2-6 opposite or ternate pointed scales alternate with or bearing on their 

 inner face at the base on a minute ovuliferous scale 1 or 2 ovules. Fruit a berry-like 

 succulent fleshy blue, blue-black, or red strobile formed by the coalition of the flower- 

 scales, inclosed in a membranaceous epidermis covered with a glaucous bloom, ripening 

 during the first, second, or rarely during the third season, smooth or marked by the 

 ends of the flower-scales, or by the pointed tips of the ovules, closed, or open at the 

 top and exposing the apex of the seeds. Seeds 1-12, ovate, acute or obtuse, terete 

 or variously angled, often longitudinally grooved by depressions caused by the pres- 

 sure of resin-cells in the flesh of the fruit, smooth or roughened and tuberculate, 

 light chestnut-brown, marked below by the large conspicuous usually 2-lobed hilum; 

 seed-coat of 2 layers, the outer thick and bony, the inner thin, membranaceous or 

 crustaceous; cotyledons 2, or 4-6, about as long as the superior radicle. 



Juniperus is widely scattered over the northern hemisphere from the Arctic Cir- 

 cle to the highlands of Mexico, Lower California, and the West Indies in the New 

 World, and to the Azores and Canary Islands, northern Africa, Abyssinia, the moun- 

 tains of east tropical Africa, Sikkim, central China, and the mountains of southern 

 Japan in the Old World. About thirty-five species are now distinguished. Of the 

 * exotic species cultivated in the United States the most common are European forms 

 of Juniperus communis, L., with fastigiate branches, and dwarf forms of Juniperus 

 Sabina, L., and of Juniperus recurva, I). Don, of the Himalayas. 

 Juniperus is the classical name of the Juniper. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 



Flowers axillary ; stamens decussate; ovules 3, alternate with the scales of the flower, their 

 tips persistent on the fruit ; seeds usually 3 ; leaves in 3's, awl-shaped, rigid, free and 

 jointed at the base, without glands ; buds scaly. 



Fruit subglobose, bright blue covered with a glaucous bloom ; leaves spreading, dark 

 yellow-green, channeled and white glaucous on the upper surface. 



1. J. communis (A, B, F). 

 Flowers terminal, on short axillary branchlets ; stamens decussate or in 3's ; ovules in the 



