CYPRESS AND JUNIPER TREES OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION. 33 



Drooping juniper was first discovered in Mexico by the German 

 botanist Schiede, who found it in June, 1830/ at "Atotonilco el 

 Chico," 2 State of Hidalgo. Ehrenberg is also said to have found 

 the drooping juniper at Regla and at other points in Mexico at ele- 

 vations between 6,000 and 8,000 foet. It first became known to 

 botanists as a Mexican tree in 1838, when it was technically described 

 and named Juniperus flaccida Schlech. The French botanist 

 Carriere informs us that the tree was brought to Europe in that 

 year for purposes of cultivation. The first discovery of drooping 

 juniper within our border was in 1885, when Dr. Valery Harvard, 

 United States Army surgeon and botanist, found the tree in the Chisos 

 Mountains 3 of southwestern Texas, which is the only location now 

 known for it in the United States. 



DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS. 



Drooping juniper varies in size from a bushy tree 8 to 15 feet in 

 height and 3 to 6 inches through to one of medium size, from 20 to 

 25 feet tall and 12 to 20 inches in diameter. The best developed 

 specimens have straight trunks, clear of branches for from 10 to 15 

 feet, and rather open, narrowly pyramidal crowns. Trees growing 

 in dry, exposed places are rarely over 10 feet high, densely branched 

 to the ground, and have a dome-shaped crown. The crown is com- 

 posed of wide-spreading ascending branches, at the ends of which 

 the slender, drooping twigs (Pis. XXIII, XXIV) give the tree a 

 graceful, weeping appearance. In the case of trees growing in deep 

 shaded canyon bottoms (PL XXVI) the drooping habit is especially 

 pronounced, the pendent branchlets often being a foot or more in 

 length. Trees on exposed, drier slopes have very much shorter 

 twigs (PL XXII). 



The trunk bark is externally grayish brown in color, while within 

 it is a purple or russet brown. On large trunks the bark is fibrous 

 but firm, and distinctly marked with deep furrows and narrow 

 anastomosely arranged ridges. It varies in thickness from one-half 

 an inch on small trees to U inches on larger trees. The bark of 

 twigs that have recently shed their leaves is a russet-brown or 

 purple-brown, composed of easily detached, very thin scales. Bark 

 of the branches is also scaly, but grayish-brown. 



The pale yellowish-green foliage is somewhat prickly to the touch, 

 owing to the slightly spreading, keenly pointed leaves. The ordinary 

 adult scalelike leaves are about one-eighth of an inch long (PL 



i Schlechtendal in Linnaea, Zwolfter Band, 495. 1838. 



2 "Atotonilco el Chico," also once called "El Chico," a small mining town in Mexico, is now known a-s 

 Atotonilco and lies due north and near Patchuca, the capital of Hidalgo. 



3 Dr. Harvard's note upon this species (Proceedings of the U. S. Nat. Mus., viii, 504, 1885) is exceed- 

 ingly brief: "Small tree, only seen in the Chisos Mountains." 



84703°— Bull. 207—15 3 



