The Junipers 



Alberta to Texas on the eastern slopes; on the western slopes it 

 enters Washington, Oregon and California. 



The larger fruit, requiring two years to ripen, the broader 

 head, the stouter branches and twigs, the paler foliage, and the 

 shreddy bark distinguish this species from the true red juniper 

 which meets it on the hither boundaries of the Rockies, and from 

 which it was but recently separated by botanists. 



Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis, Hook.) — Low, 

 broad-headed tree, 20 to 65 feet high, with unusually thick trunk 

 and stout, horizontal branches. Bark \ inch thick, bright crimson- 

 red, in broad, scaly ridges, with shallow irregular interlacing fur- 

 rows. Wood soft, light, pale reddish brown, fme grained, very 

 durable in the soil. Leaves in threes, minute, closely appressed 

 to twigs, grey-green, tapering, sharp pointed. Flowers cone-like, 

 monoecious, inconspicuous. Fruit a blue-black berry with pale 

 bloom, J to J inch long; seeds 2 to 3. Preferred habitat, mountain 

 sides and elevated plains, 6,000 to 10,000 feet. Distribution, 

 western Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California, following the 

 Sierra Nevada Mountains to the San Bernardino range. Uses: 

 Wood for fencing and fuel. Bark woven into mats and cloth by 

 Indians. Fruit an important article of food among California 

 tribes. 



Here is one of the patriarchal trees of America — one whose 

 age ranks it with the Sequoias, dating the birth of the oldest back, 

 assuredly, more than 2,000 years. It is impossible to find a giant 

 with trunk sound to the core and telling the whole story in its 

 annual rings. John Muir is probably the only man who has made 

 serious inquiry into this matter. On the bleak ridges of the 

 Sierras, with no soil but crumbs of disintegrating granite, these 

 trees make scarcely any gain from year to year. Two of Muir's 

 measurements are given below, the years being determined by the 

 number of annual rings. 



Diameter of Trunk Age 



2 feet II inches 1,140 years 



I foot 7^ inches 834 years 



Being a poet as well as a scientist, John Muir was deterred from 

 the killing of one of the elders, merely to appease his curiosity. 

 Beside, dry rot and scars of ancient hurts confuse the reader of 

 tree rings, and throw him upon estimates, after all. The ditficulties 



III 



