CONIFERS 91 



A tree, often 50-60 high, with a short trunk 3-5 in diameter, long stout 

 spreading branches forming a broad-based pyramidal or ultimately a compact round- 

 topped head, and slender branchlets covered after the disappearance of the leaves 

 with thin light red-brown usually smooth close bark occasionally broken into large 

 thin scales. Bark '-4' thick, dark brown tinged with red, deeply fissured and 

 divided into nearly square plates l'-2' long, and separating on the surface into small 

 thin closely appressed scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, close-grained, 

 clear light red often streaked with yellow, with thin nearly white sapwood. The 

 fruit is gathered and eaten by Indians. 



Distribution. Dry arid mountain slopes usually at elevations of 4000-6000 

 above the sea, from the Eagle and Limpio mountains in southwestern Texas, west- 

 ward along the desert ranges of New Mexico and Arizona, south of the Colorado 

 plateau, extending northward to the lower slopes of many of the high mountains of 

 northern Arizona and southward into Mexico. 



**Fruit small [large in 6], blue or blue-black seeds 1-4- 



6. Juniperus occidentalis, Hook. Juniper. 



Leaves in 3's, closely appressed, acute or acuminate, rounded and conspicuously 

 glandular on the back, gray-green, about ^' long. Flowers : staminate stout, obtuse, 

 with 12-18 stamens, their connectives broadly ovate, rounded, acute or apiculate and 



scarious or slightly ciliate on the margins; scales of the pistillate flower ovate, 

 acute, spreading, mostly obliterated from the fruit. Fruit subglobose or oblong, 

 \'-^' long, with a thick firm blue-black epidermis coated with a glaucous bloom, thin 

 dry flesh filled with large resin-glands, and 2 or 3 seeds; seeds ovate, acute, rounded 

 and deeply grooved or pitted on the back, flattened on the inner surface, about 

 \' long, with a thick bony shell, a thin brown inner seed-coat, and 2 cotyledons. 



A tree, occasionally 60 high, with a tall straight trunk 2-3 in diameter, more 

 often hardly exceeding 20 in height, with a short trunk sometimes 10 in diameter, 

 enormous branches, spreading at nearly right angles and forming a broad low head, 

 and stout branchlets covered after the leaves fall with thin bright red-brown bark 

 broken into loose papery scales; frequently when growing on dry rocky slopes and 



