THE DWARF JUNIPER.
Juniperus communis, Linn.
The dwarf juniper departs from the pyramidal pattern and forms a loose, open head above a short, stout trunk. The slender branchlets are clothed with boat-shaped leaves which spread nearly at right angles from the twigs in whorls of three. Each one is pointed and hollowed, dark green outside, snowy white inside, which is really the upper side of the leaf. It requires three years to mature the bright blue berries, and they hang on the tree two or three years longer. Each fruit contains two or three seeds, and these require three years to germinate.
It is plain to see that time is no object to this slow-grow ing dwarf juniper, found in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, covering vast stretches of waste land. From
Greenland to Alaska it is found and south along the high lands into Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and California. Its hardiness gives it importance as a cover for waste land on seashores and for hedges and windbreaks in any exposed situation. It is a tree reaching thirty feet in height on the limestone hills of southern Illinois. In other situations it is usually a sprawling shrubby thing, the cringing parent of a race of dwarf junipers, known in many and various horticultural forms.