MOUNTAIN JUNIPER 



Juniperus sibirka Burgsdorf 



Mountain juniper frequents dry, stony places either among other 

 shrubs or on open mountain slopes, where it forms circular patches 

 often ten feet in diameter, but seldom more than eighteen inches tall. 

 Its many stiff branches and prickly leaves are so offensive that ponies, 

 as well as people, avoid crossing the patches. By midsummer the 

 bushes are loaded with blue-gray berry-like cones which, when win- 

 ter comes, are eaten by wild birds. The berries of some of the other 

 species of juniper were used by the Indians, who ate them either raw 

 or dried, or ground into meal and prepared as mush or cakes. Cakes 

 made from berries of alligator juniper, an Arizona species, are said to 

 be easily digested and palatable to European people. 



Mountain juniper ranges from Massachusetts, New York, and Mich- 

 igan north to Labrador and central Canada, and in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains from New Mexico to California and northward to Alaska. It 

 occurs also in Siberia. 



The specimen sketched was obtained in the Saskatchewan River 

 Valley, British Columbia, fifty miles north of Lake Louise Station on 

 the Canadian Pacific Railway, at an altitude of 4,000 feet. 



PLATE 86 



