1430 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



JUNIPERUS CHINENSIS 



Jfuniperus chinensis, Linnsus, Mantissa, i. 127 (1767) 5 Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2505 (1838) ; 



Siebold et Zuccarini, Fl. Jap. 58, tt. 126, 127, (1844) ; Parlatore, in De Candolle, Prod. xvi. 2, 



p. 487 (1868) j Franchet et Savatier, Enum. PL Jap. i. 472 (1875); Masters, mjourn. Linn. 



Soc. {Bot.) xviii. 497 (1881), and xxvi. 541 (1902), and in Journ. Bot. xli. 268 (1903); 



Beissner, in Mitt. Deut. Dend. Ges. 1896, p. 69, and 1898, p. 32, and in Bull. Soc. Bot. Ital. 



Firenze, 1898, p. 167 ; Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 169 (1900) ; Shirasawa, Icon. Ess. Forest. 



Japan, i. text 29, t. 12, figs. 14-27 (1899); Diels, in Engler, Bot. Jahrb. xxix. 220 (1901). 

 Juniperus cernua and dimorpha, Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. iii. 839 (1832). 

 Sabina chinensis, Antoine, Cupress. Gattung. 54, t. 75 (1857). 

 Sabina Cabiancce, Antoine, Cupress. Gattung. 41, t. 54 (1857). 



A tree, attaining in China and Japan a height of 60 ft. Leaves of two kinds : 

 on adult trees scale-like ; ultimate branchlets ^ in. in diameter, clothed with four 

 ranks of leaves in opposite pairs, which are imbricated, closely appressed, narrowly 

 rhombic, ^V i"- lo"g> tapering to rather an obtuse apex, adnate to the stem, entire in 

 margin ; outer surface convex, green with a pale margin, and marked with a 

 depressed oval or oblong gland ; interiorly concave, with a raised narrow midrib, 

 glaucous.. On older branchlets the scale leaves are larger, about ^ in. long, con- 

 spicuously glandular on the back, persistent four or five years. On young trees and 

 on occasional branches of old trees, the juvenile foliage is linear-acicular, \ in. long, 

 spreading, either in whorls of threes or in opposite pairs, tipped with a rigid spine- 

 like point, adnate to the branchlets, swollen on the upper surface near the base, 

 but not jointed ; concave above, with a green midrib and two glaucous bands ; 

 green and convex beneath. 



Flowers dioecious. Staminate flowers bright yellow, very numerous.^ Fruit 

 ripening in the second year, borne on the ends of short branchlets, which are 

 covered with ordinary scale-leaves ; brown covered with a thick white mealy bloom ; 

 variable in shape, commonly sub-globose, but widest and usually depressed at the 

 summit, averaging \ in. in diameter, composed of four to eight scales. Seeds two 

 or three, rarely four or five, immersed in a resinous pulp, shining deep chestnut 

 brown, smooth, broadly ovoid, with a wide base, gradually tapering to a sharp thin- 

 edged apiculate apex, compressed from before backwards, each surface convex, with a 

 longitudinal groove near the thinner outer edges. 



This species is readily distinguishable by the pale margins of the scale-like 

 leaves, which mark the ultimate branchlets with a series of white crosses. In nearly 

 all adult trees, acicular foliage with the leaves either ternate or in opposite pairs 

 can be found on some of the branches. 



Varieties 

 I. This species is very variable in habit in the wild state ; and, as Beissner "^ 

 points out, in the mountains of Shensi in China, both male and female trees exist, 



1 On certain trees at Kew, and in wild specimens of Shensi {fide Beissner) staminate flowers are borne on branchlets with 

 acicular as well as with scale-like foliage ; and this seems peculiar to/, chinensis. 

 ^ In Mitt. Deut. Dend. Ges. 1896, p. 69, and 1898, p. 32. 



