16 BULLETIN 207, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



upward from the trunk, while there are also many short ones. Some- 

 times the top is divided into two or three thick forks, giving the tree 

 a broader crown than usual. In such cases, if the trees grow on flats 

 with deep soil, the crowns are dense, symmetrical, round-topped, and 

 conical, and extend down to within 6 feet of the ground. Young 

 trees have straight, sharply tapering stems and narrow, open crowns 

 of distant, slender, but stiff-looking, long, upturned branches. In 

 old age the lower and middle-crown branches often droop, but their 

 tips continue to turn upward. The firm stringy bark of the trunk is 

 a clear, light cinnamon-brown, one-half to If inches thick, distinctly 

 cut longitudinally by wide, shallow furrows, the long flat ridges being 

 connected at remote intervals by narrower diagonal ones. Bark of 

 branchlets that have recently shed their leaves is smooth, very thin, 

 and clear reddish-brown, but later, as the twigs grow larger, is divided 

 into loosely attached, thin scales of lighter red-brown. 



The short, pale ashy-green, scalelike leaves (PI. VIII) clasp the 

 stiff -looking twigs closely, the longer, sharper leaves of young, thrifty 

 shoots spreading slightly at their points (PI. VIII, a). All leaves have 

 a prominent, glandular pit on the back, the abundant whitish resin of 

 which marks the twigs conspicuously and is a distinguishing character. 

 The leaves are arranged on the steins in successive groups of three, 

 thus forming rounded twigs with six longitudinal rows of leaves. 

 The margins of the leaves are minutely toothed. Those produced 

 each season die in about their second year. 



Male and female flowers are borne on different trees. The "ber- 

 ries" (PI. VIII), from one-fourth to one-third of an inch in diameter, 

 mature about the first of September of the second year, when they 

 are bluish black with a whitish bloom. The skin is tough, and only 

 slightly marked at or near the top of the berry by the tips of the female 

 flower scales. The sweetish, pungent aromatic flesh of the ripe berries 

 is scanty, dry, and contains from two to three bony, pitted, and grooved 

 seeds (PI. VIII, b, c, d). Seed-leaves, two in number, are needlelike, 

 sharp pointed, and about an inch long. Seedling leaves are similar 

 in form, but much shorter, spreading in groups of three at close inter- 

 vals. The leaves produced in subsequent years are successively 

 shorter and closer in their arrangement, until about the third or fourth 

 year, when a few twigs bear leaves of adult form. 



The wood of western juniper is pale brown, tinged with red, with a 

 slight aromatic odor, very narrow-ringed, and, like that of the other 

 brown-wooded junipers, remarkably durable. It is soft and brittle, 

 and splits easily, in this respect resembling the wood of the eastern 

 red-wooded pencil cedars (/. virginiana and /. barbadensis) . The 

 short, often very knotty trunks, are much used locally for posts and 

 fuel, but furnish poor saw timber, though they would give good blocks 

 for pencils. 



