Juniperus 1407 



were not over 20 ft. high. A specimen log in the Forestry Museum, Cambridge, 

 sent by the Earl of Portsmouth, shows a section about 7 in. in diameter at five feet 

 from the ground, displaying 120 annual rings. Owing to decay, the rings at the 

 base could not be counted. In Glen Urquhart there are large thickets of scrubby 

 junipers, which in Gaelic are called asten, but I saw no tall ones in this locality. 

 In Perthshire it is local and, according to Buchanan White,^ commonest between 

 Dunkeld and Ballinluig. It ascends to 2600 ft. in Breadalbane. 



On Ford, a farm occupied by Mr. Wallace, near Capenoch, Dumfriesshire, 

 there is a hillside facing south, on the Silurian formation, covered with junipers 

 over an area of thirty to forty acres, which, as I was told by Mr. Hugh Gladstone 

 who showed them to me, have been in their present condition as long as any one can 

 remember. Prof. R. Wallace tells me that an old man, who died last year at a great 

 age, said that he could remember them when they were quite small ; and Mr. 

 Paterson of Craigdarroch says that no class of stock would eat juniper, though 

 Herdwick sheep are said to do so when they can get no other food. At Capenoch, 

 though the ground is grazed by sheep and cattle, there are many young seedlings 

 coming up among the heather. The largest bushes here were 15 to 18 ft., but the 

 majority were 6 to 10 ft. high, and some had the fastigiate habit of the so-called Irish 

 juniper. Except a few ash, holly, and rowan, I noticed no other trees but juniper 

 on this hillside. Col. Kennedy of Milton Park Lodge, Dairy, Kirkcudbrightshire, 

 says that juniper is very scarce in that district, and that in Inverness-shire, where 

 it is common near Kingussie, grouse are very fond of taking shelter in it in hot 

 weather. 



The juniper is common as a wild plant in the west of Ireland, being recorded 

 by Praeger^ for Donegal, Sligo, Mayo, Galway, Tipperary, and Kerry, where it is 

 confined to the mountains and lake shores. Mr. R. A. Phillips writes to us as 

 follows: — " I doubt if var. nana^ is really a variety or only a prostrate state of 

 J. communis. In east Galway, on the limestone at Gort, and on the shores of Loch 

 Derg near Portumna, where the species is abundant, it is an upright bushy plant 

 when growing in fairly deep soil or in sheltered hollows ; but close by on exposed 

 rocks or bare ground it is perfectly prostrate. I have always failed in these 

 localities to distinguish any difference in the leaves or fruits of the two forms. On 

 the non-calcareous mountains of west Galway, Cork, and Kerry, principally Old Red 

 Sandstone, the juniper is usually prostrate, and here its leaves are broader and more 

 imbricate, with sometimes oval fruit, than the plant of the limestone ; but even this 

 form is in some sheltered lowland spots an upright bush. So far as I have seen, 

 the juniper will not live in shade, and never forms undergrowth. Near Gort, the 

 prostrate form covers large areas ; and near Portumna, the upright form occurs in 

 small groves, but never in such quantity as to deserve the name of a wood. The 

 largest specimens which I have seen were about 12 to 15 ft. high, girthing near the 

 ground 18 to 24 in." The finest that I have seen in Ireland is in the grounds of 



' Buchanan \Vhite, Flora of Perthshire, 282 (1898). - In Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. vii. 288 (1901). 



' Mr. Phillips is inclined to think that in Ireland, typical J. communis, as r^ards leaves and fruit, is a calcicole ; whereas 

 var. natm is a calcifuge. 



VI L 



