16 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



usually six, and spreading; the galbuloid berry globose or 

 oval, rive to six lines long, signs of scale tips, or mucros 

 scarcely prominent; seeds one, or sometimes two, four to six 

 lines long; shell very hard, thick, and smooth, shining 

 browD above, with large bilobed whitish hilum. 



We are apt to confound this common coast and island 

 species with the Great Far \Yestern Juniper (J. occidentales). 

 However, as Dr. Englemann observes, it is readily distin- 

 guished by the fruit, this having a dryer, sweetish, and not 

 so resinous tasted berry, which is larger and reddish blue 

 bloomy (instead of being smaller and bluish black, or rarely 

 brown, as occidcntalis is). Found in the vicinity of San 

 Francisco, on the Oakland hills, Mount Tamalpais, and 

 Mount Diablo, all along the coast range in general, and on 

 the islands off the coast southward; also, said to be in the 

 Sierras, and so on to Utah and Arizona. 



Junipers readily clip to any pattern, and thus form the 

 most substantial, perfect, and lasting screens, walls, mantels, 

 or mats of verdure, over the most arid, sterile, sandy, or 

 rocky places, etc. \Yhenever planted and trained over or 

 against objects deemed desirable to conceal, there is in this, 

 only a furtherance of the order of nature, and because all 

 men and things together tend towards sympathy, and mani- 

 fold harmony, orderly, or disorderly with their surround- 

 ings, therefore it is, when with the former, that our eye 

 dwells with more pleasing satisfaction upon forms that do 

 little or no violence to the order of nature. Who can fail to 

 admire the responsive facility with which the minor species 

 of juniper like this, thicken in, and apply themselves to that 

 humble habit that, with a hint of training, they so readily 

 take on, of shielding the rude and the rejected; laying the 

 soft and soothing hand of natural beauty over the sharp and 

 ragged rocks, lighting up the lonely and desolate places of 

 of the land ; venerable in sacred classics for shielding the 

 wild ass boy of the wilderness and archer of the desert; the 

 bright leader in sciences and human rationals. 



The universal use of these berries in beer and spirits, is 

 already too well known. Hitherto there has been no call, to 

 speak of, on this coast for such superior timber ; but if ever a 

 naval demand for knees, or short ship timbers should arise, 

 no lack of resource will be likely to limit the supply. 



