The Junipers 



From time immemorial the flavour of the juniper berry has been 

 the sine qua non to quality in this beverage. 



California Juniper {Juniperus Calijornica, Carr.) — Conical 

 or broad and open-headed tree, 20 to 40 feet high, with irregular, 

 fluted trunk and twisted limbs. Bark thin, pale grey, hanging 

 m loose plate-like scales. Wood soft, fine grained, reddish brown, 

 durable in soil. Leaves in threes, on older twigs, thick keeled, 

 set close to twig, pale yellow-green; on new shoots, linear, pale 

 lined, spiny, spreading. Flowers, January to March, monoecious, 

 in scaly aments. Fruits ripe second season, oblong or round, \ to \ 

 inch long, brown, with pale bloom; seeds i to 2, large. Preferred 

 habitat, dry plains and slopes of mountains. Disirihuiion, coast 

 mountains from the lower Sacramento Valley to Lower California; 

 east into Sierra Nevada. Uses: Wood for posts and for fuel. 

 Fruit eaten by Indians. Locally planted to some extent on semi- 

 arid land. 



The Utah Juniper {Juniper Utahensis, Lemm.) takes the 

 place of the California species in the arid regions between the Sierra 

 Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. It is called the desert juniper, 

 is gnarled like its Western relative, and has much the same habit, 

 though its round berry, with a solitary seed, and its slender twigs 

 distinguish it. This little tree serves the settler and the Indian 

 just as the California species does. 



The Drooping Juniper (Juniperus flaccida, Schlecht.) has 

 long, flexible branchlets that give it grace beyond the portion 

 allotted to its kindred. The bark of this little tree is bright cin- 

 namon and is shed in papery scales. It is a pity that this dainty 

 juniper, which is met in gardens of Algiers and in the south of 

 France, should be unknown to horticulture in its own country. 

 It wastes its beauty on uninhabited slopes of the Chisos Mountains 

 in southwestern Texas, and is common at high altitudes across 

 the Mexican border. 



The Checker-barked Juniper {Juniperus pachyphlcea, Torr.) 

 also inhabits southwestern Texas, following arid slopes between 

 4,000 and 6,000 feet in altitude, and invading New Mexico, Arizona, 

 and Mexico. It is a considerable tree, 40 to 60 feet high, with 

 short, stout trunk and broad, horizontal spread of limb — a lusty 

 tree to be produced on arid soil. The peculiar checkered bark 

 gives it distinction in the genus. It is often 3 to 4 inches in thick- 

 ness, and the regularity of the deep, vertical furrowing seems 



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