1408 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Woodstock, Kilkenny, where in 1909 I measured a tree with four stems each 

 measuring 3 to 4 ft. in girth and about 30 ft. high. 



Timber 



The wood of the juniper is whitish brown, hard, and takes a very good polish, 

 but owing to its being usually too small for any but local uses is not often seen. It 

 is, however, so strong and durable that the stems are commonly used for railway 

 and other fences in Norway and Sweden, and are exported to Denmark from 

 Sweden for the same purpose. 



The fence of the Dyrhave or Royal Deerpark, near Copenhagen, is made from 

 straight juniper poles about 3 to 4 in. in diameter, fixed on oak posts and rails. 

 When I saw this fence in 1887, I was informed by the late Mr. O. Benson of 

 Copenhagen that it had been erected about 100 years. I was so much struck by 

 its appearance and durability that in 1904 I imported, through the kind assistance 

 of Mr. E. Nilson of the Swedish Royal Forest Service, 1000 juniper poles, 

 2 metres long, at a cost of ^"15 free on board, and have put them up to fence off a 

 part of my own deerpark for planting. The fence is made with stout oak posts, 

 4 yards apart, and the poles are kept in place by three strands of strained galvanised 

 wire without crossbars, strong wire netting being fixed on the lower half to keep 

 rabbits out and deer from getting their heads between the poles. It forms a strong, 

 cheap, and probably a very durable deer fence. 



Though the berries of the juniper are not now valued in medicine as much as 

 they were in Evelyn's time,' yet they are still used for flavouring gin,' which owes 

 its diuretic quality to them. An essential oil is also distilled from them. The 

 berries are largely collected in the south-east of France and in Hungary for the 

 wholesale druggists.^ (H. J. E.) 



JUNIPERUS RIGIDA 



Juniperus rigida, Siebold and Zuccarini, Fl. Jap. ii. 56, t. 125 (1844); Franchet and Savatier, 

 Enum. PL Jap. i. 471 (1875); Masters, in Journ. Linn. Soc. {B ot.) xVin. 496 (1881), and 

 xxvi. 543 (1902); Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 188 (1900); Shirasawa, Icon. Ess. Forest. Jap. 

 i. t. 12, figs. 1-13 (1899); Komarov, Fl. Mansh. i. 207 (1901). 



A small tree, attaining in Japan 20 to 30 ft. in height, often a low spreading bush. 

 Bark thin and scaly. Young branchlets triquetrous, with three projecting ridges, 

 becoming terete and scaly in the fourth year. Leaves all acicular, persistent three or 

 four years, spreading, in whorls of threes, linear-subulate, ^ to f in. long, about 

 •^ in. broad, tapering from the middle to the very sharp cartilaginous apex, swollen 



1 Evelyn, Silva, 130 (1670) says : — " The berries afford (besides a tolerable pepper) one of the most universal remedies in 

 the virorld to our crazy forester. The berry swallowed only, instantly appeaseth the worst collique, and in decoction most 

 sovereign against an inveterate cough. They are of rare effect being steeped in beer. The water is a most singular specifique 

 against the gravel in the reins." 



2 Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, t. 255 (1880), give a good account of the medicinal uses of juniper, and state 

 that the gin ordinarily distilled in England is flavoured with oil of turpentine, whereas gin, made in Holland, is slightly 

 flavoured with juniper berries, two pounds of berries being used to 100 gallons of gin. 



3 FlUckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacographia, 626 (1879). 



