1400 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



it is doubtful if it has ever been introduced, as Carriere states ^ that all the 

 reputed plants of /. occidentalis which he saw were very doubtful ; and Kent ^ 

 does not appear to have recognised this species. (A. H.) 



JUNIPERUS COMMUNIS, Common Juniper 



Juniperm communis, Linnseus, Sp. PL 1040 (1753); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2489 (1838); 

 Parlatore, in De Candolle, Prod. xvi. 2, p. 479 (1868); Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, 

 iv. t. 255 (1880); Boissier, Flora Orientalis, v. 707 (1881); Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 261 

 (1887); J. D. Hooker, Fl. Brit. India, v. 646 (1888); Koppen, Geog. Verbreit. Holzgewachse 

 Russlands, ii. 396 (1889); Jack, in Bot. Gaz.yivm.. 369, pi. 33 (1893); Sargent, SilvaN.Amer. 

 X. 75, t. 516 (1896), and Trees N. Amer. 86 (1905)5 Mathieu, Flore Forestiire, 514 (1897); 

 Ascherson and Graebner, Syn. Mitteleurop. Flora, i. 243 (1898); Franchet, m/ourn. de Bot. 

 1899, p. 264; Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 170 (1900); Brandis, Indian Trees, 694 (1906); 

 Kirchner and Schroter, Lebengesch. Bliitenpfl. Mitteleuropas, i. 287 (1906). 



A shrub or low tree, occasionally, however, attaining 40 ft. or more in height. 

 Bark reddish brown, at first smooth, ultimately peeling in thin papery shreds. 

 Young branchlets slender, triquetrous, with three projecting narrow ridges between 

 the whorls of leaves. Buds about \ in. long, with a few loose ovate acuminate 

 green scales. Leaves all acicular, persistent for three years, sessile, spreading, 

 variable in length, averaging f to f in. long, linear-subulate, gradually tapering from 

 near the jointed and swollen base to the slender spine-like apex ; upper surface 

 concave, with usually a single continuous broad white longitudinal stomatic band, 

 no green midrib being present, except occasionally near the base, in which case the 

 stomatic band is divided into two parts for a short distance ; lower surface bluntly 

 keeled, with usually a slight furrow in the middle line ; resin-canal solitary, situated 

 in the substance of the leaf below the central fibro-vascular bundle. 



Flowers dioecious, rarely monoecious, formed in autumn in the axils of the 

 lower whorls of leaves on the current year's shoot, opening in the following spring. 

 Staminate flowers solitary, cylindrical, \ in. long, yellow ; stamens in five or six 

 whorls, three in each whorl, with ovate acute connectives, each of which bears three 

 or four pollen-sacs. Pistillate flowers solitary, green, ^ in. long ; scales in six or 

 seven whorls, three in each whorl ; the upper three scales minute at the time of 

 flowering, and alternating with three fleshy tubular ovules ; the lower scales larger, 

 ovate-acuminate, empty. 



Fruit \ ripening in the second or third year,* small and green in the first year ; 

 when mature, bluish or almost black, covered with a slight bloom, globose or slightly 

 longer than broad, \ in. in diameter, on a short scaly stalk ; smooth, marked at the 

 summit by three very short radiating lines, below which are three shallow 

 depressions overhung by three minute mucros, indicating the three scales of which 



1 Conif. 40 (1867). 2 Veitch's Man. Conif. 178 (1900). 



' Occasionally the three scales, of which the fruit is composed, do not unite at the summit of the fruit, but gape, showing 

 the seeds inside. This abnormality, var. thiocarpos, Ascherson and Graebner, op. cit. 245, was described as a distinct genus, 

 Thuicecarpus jtmiperinus, by Trautvetter, Imag. PI. Ross. l\, t. 6 (1844). 



Another abnormality, var. coronata, Sanio, in Deut. Bot. Monatsschrf i. 51 (1883), is occasionally met with, when the 

 points of the scales unite together and form a projection at the summit of the fruit. 



« Cf. Jack, in Bot. Gaz. xviii. 369-375, plate 33 (1893), who states that in America this species does not ripen its fruit 

 till the autumn of the third year after blossoming. 



