JUNIPER. The junipers, of which there are about 4o species, are evergreen bushy shrubs or low columnar trees of the pine family (Pinaceae), with a more or less aromatic odour, in habiting the whole of the cold and temperate northern hemisphere, but attaining their maximum development in the Mediterranean region, the North Atlantic islands, and the eastern United States. The leaves are usually articulated at the base, spreading, sharp pointed and needle-like in form, destitute of oil-glands, and ar ranged in alternating whorls of three ; but in some the leaves are minute and scale-like, closely adhering to the branches, the apex only being free, and furnished with an oil-gland on the back. Sometimes the same plant produces both kinds of leaves on dif ferent branches, or the young plants produce acicular leaves, while those of the older plants are scale-like. The male and female flowers are usually produced on separate plants. The mature cone is fleshy, with the succulent scales fused together and forming the fruit-like structure, the berry of the juniper. The berries are red or purple in colour, varying in size from in. to in. in diameter. They thus differ considerably from the cones of other members of the order Coniferae, of Gymnosperms (q.v.), to which the junipers belong. The seeds are usually three in number, sometimes fewer (I), rarely more (8), and are marked with large glands containing oil. The genus occurs in a fossil state, four species having been described from Tertiary rocks. The savin, Juniperus Sabina, abundant on the mountains of central Europe, is an irregularly spreading much-branched shrub with scale-like glandular leaves, and emitting a disagreeable odour when bruised. The plant is poisonous, acting as a powerful local and general stimulant, diaphoretic, emmenagogue and anthel mintic ; it was formerly employed both internally and externally. J. bermudiana, a tree about 4o or 5o ft. in height, yields a fra grant red wood, which was used for the manufacture of "cedar" pencils. The tree is still abundant in Bermuda, but the "red cedar," J. virginiana, of North America is employed instead for pencils and is also used for clothes chests, interior finish, fence posts and telegraph poles. The red cedar, which is native to dry soil from Nova Scotia to North Dakota and south to Georgia and Texas, sometimes attains a height of too ft. and a trunk diameter of 5 ft., though usually much smaller. The galls produced at
the ends of the branches have been used in medicine, and the wood yields cedar-camphor and oil of cedar-wood. J. thurif era is the incense juniper of Spain and Portugal, and J. phoenicea (J. lycia) from the Mediter ranean district is stated by Lou don to be burned as incense.
The common juniper, J. corn munis, is a very widely distrib uted plant, occurring in the whole of northern Europe, central and northern Asia to Kamchatka, and east and west North America. It grows at considerable eleva tions in southern Europe, in the Alps, Apennines, Pyrenees and Sierra Nevada (4,00o to 8,000 ft.). It also grows in Asia Minor, Persia, and at great elevations on the Himalayas. In Great Britain it is usually a shrub with spread ing branches, less frequently a low tree. The common juniper is official in the British pharmacopoeia and in that of the United States, yielding the oil of juniper, a powerful diuretic, distilled from the unripe fruits. The wood is very aromatic and is used for ornamental purposes. In Lapland the bark is made into ropes. The fruits are used for flavouring gin (a name derived from juniper, through Fr. genievre). J. Oxycedrus, from the Mediter ranean district and Madeira, yields cedar-oil which is official in most of the European pharmacopoeias. This oil is used largely in microscopical work for "clearing" sections, etc.
Juniperus drupacea of Asia Minor has large and edible fruits; they are known in the East by the name habhel.
In North America about 15 native species of juniper occur, inclusive of the red cedar and the common juniper. Among these are the western red cedar (J. scopu/orum), which extends from the central Rocky Mountains northwestward to British Columbia; the California juniper (J. californica), with reddish fruit, eaten by the Indians; the rock juniper (J. mexicana), of Texas and Mexico, with brown wood; the western juniper (J. occidentalis), of the Pacific States; the alligator juniper (J. pachyphloea), of the southern Rockies, with a distinctly checkered trunk; the creeping juniper (J. horizontalis), found from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, with prostrate branches; and the rare drooping juniper (J. flaccida), of the Mexican border, with weeping branches.
Many junipers are extensively grown as ornamentals, especially varieties of the savin, the common juniper and the red cedar.