THE COMMON JUNIPER — continued. 
The male flowers are little yellow oblong cones, each consisting of several whorls 
of stamens, three in each whorl, as in the foliage-leaves. So too the little bud-like 
female flowers consist of two or three whorls of three scales, the lower ones mem- 
branous, while the three uppermost become fleshy and are carried up over the young 
seeds after fertilisation by a cup-shaped ring growing from below. Between these 
three carpellary scales are the three ovules, which project until the pollen-grains have 
found their way — carried by wind from a male bush — into their micropyles, after 
which they become embedded. 
The berry-like structure thus formed, showing the tips of its carpels as project- 
ing points a little removed from its summit, remains green and dry during its first 
year ; but by the autumn of the second year has become soft and juicy, from a fourth 
to a third of an inch in diameter, and of a blue-black colour, with a grey waxy 
bloom. As the juice contains sugar it is fermentable. 
The enclosed seeds become hard and bony externally but also develop several 
large resin-glands in their testas, so that the “ rob ” or extract from the ripe fruits 
and their contained seeds is sweet, resinous, and strongly flavoured. Physiologically, 
all this is an adaptation of the seeds for dispersal by the agency of birds ; whilst the 
dry winged seeds of Pines are mainly disseminated by wind. While the incon- 
spicuous green fruit is dry and unattractive, by the time it has become conspicuously 
coloured and juicy the seeds are protected by the hardening of the testa, so that when 
the fruit is eaten by birds the seeds are not injured in passing through the birds’ bodies. 
The two cotyledons of the embryo are not divided as are those of the Pines. 
The fine and close-grained and very durable wood of the Juniper is sometimes 
used on the Continent for whip-handles, vine-stakes, and turnery ; and, as it is 
pleasantly fragrant when burnt, it is also employed for fumigation. In the early part 
of the seventeenth century it was the custom for tobacconists to keep a fire of juniper 
wood alight at which their patrons might light their pipes. The best-known use of 
the Common Juniper is, however, the employment of its berries as the flavouring of 
gin, for which purpose they are imported from Germany and Holland. 
In Germany it is commonly seen of a considerable height on open sandy heaths, 
as it is also at Burnham Beeches on gravel overlying chalk ; but with us it is more 
familiar on the sunny slopes of the chalk downs. It will, however, flourish on non- 
calcareous soils, in wet moorland, and under the shade of other trees. Its geographical 
range is from Northern Africa and the Himalaya to Northern Siberia, Lapland, 
Iceland, and North America. 
When cultivated at high altitudes it assumes the distinctive characters of the 
dwarf form (/. nana Willdenow), while this latter when grown in the plains of Central 
Europe becomes to all intents and purposes the common form, so that they cannot 
be considered as separate species. 
Several species are in cultivation and are propagated either by seed, by 
cuttings, by layering, or by grafting on the Common Juniper. 
