292 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of Beersheba, to avoid the persecution of King Aliab. It was known 

 to the Greeks, who used its berries medicinally, though they thought 

 its shade unwholesome. Pliny says the Juniper has the same 

 properties as the Cedar, adding that, in his time, it grew in Spain to a 

 great size, but that wherever it grows its heart is always sound. He 

 also says that a piece of Juniper wood, when ignited, will, if covered 

 with ashes of the same wood, keep on fire a whole year. It is 

 mentioned by Yirgil, who says that its shade is hurtful both to men 

 and corn. The species referred to by the classical writers is in all 

 probability not the common Juniper, but the Phoenician, or some 

 other species of the South of Europe. The botanists of the Middle 

 Ages appear to have had a high opinion of the virtues of the common 

 Juniper. Tragus asserts that its berries will cure all diseases ; and 

 Mathiolus, that its virtues are too numerous to mention. Turner says 

 that in England the Juniper ' ' groweth most plenteouslie in Kent ; it 

 groweth also in the bisshopryche of Durram, and in Northumber- 

 lande. It groweth in Germany in greate plentye, but in no place in 

 greater than a lyttle from Bon, where, at the time of year the feldefares 

 fede only of Juniper berries, the people eate the feldefares undrawen, 

 with guttes and all, because they are full of the berries of Juniper " 

 (" Names of Herbes," &c. fol. 25). 



/. communis does not generally grow so tall in Denmark as in the 

 other Scandinavian countries. A plant measured in a forest in 

 Jutland in 1882 was 24 feet high ; at the same place one plant, 

 measured at breast high, gave a circumference of 3^ feet. Other 

 plants from the Danish islands have been reported to measure about 

 30 feet in height, 



J. communis grows wild in Denmark in different localities. For 

 a long time it was believed to be the only wild-growing Conifer, as 

 all Finns silvestris and Picea excelsa are planted, and Taxus haccata 

 was first found growing wild in one single locality near Veile, in 

 Jutland, about thirty years ago. It seems natural to suppose that 

 the common Juniper is really hardy, but it is not so. Very often 

 branches, or at least the outer ends of such, are kiUed by frost, 

 and in exposed localities especially the plant suffers much. In such 

 situations it cannot be used for hedges, and, moreover, plants that 

 are somewhat aged do not stand transplanting very well. During the 

 hard and long winter of 1890-91 J. communis was one of the species 

 of Conifers that suffered most. Indeed, among the many species 

 I observed, the following, strangely enough, presented the most 

 wretched appearance as old plants : Sequoia gigcintea, Taxus haccata, 

 Pinus Laricio, Abies 2^ectlnata, and J. communis. I have been 

 informed from North Sweden and Finland that there J. communis 

 also looked much damaged, and that it often does so. 



Of this species there are to be found pieces of stems in the Botanic 

 Museum at Christiania showing an age of nearly 280 years. 



