Juniperus californica Carrière

Juniperus californica, the California juniper, is a species of juniper native to southwestern North America.

Description

Juniperus californica is a shrub or small tree reaching 3–8 meters (10–26 feet), but rarely up to 10 m (33 ft) tall. The bark is ashy gray, typically thin, and appears to be "shredded". The shoots[which?] are fairly thick compared to most junipers, between 1.5 and 2 millimeters (1⁄16 and 3⁄32 inch) in diameter.

The foliage is bluish-gray and scale-like. The juvenile leaves (on the seedlings) are needle-like and 5 to 10 mm (3⁄16 to 3⁄8 in) long. Arranged in opposite decussate pairs or whorls of three, the adult leaves are scale-like, 1 to 5 mm (1⁄16 to 3⁄16 in) long on lead shoots and 1 to 1.5 mm (1⁄32 to 1⁄16 in) broad.

The cones are berrylike, 7 to 13 mm (1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in) in diameter, blue-brown with a whitish waxy bloom, turning reddish-brown, and contain a single seed (rarely two or three). The seeds are mature in about 8 or 9 months. The male cones are 2 to 4 mm (1⁄16 to 3⁄16 in) long and shed their pollen in early spring. This juniper is largely dioecious, producing cones of only one sex, but around 2% of plants are monoecious, with both sexes on the same plant.

The California juniper is closely related to the Utah juniper (J. osteosperma) from further east, which shares the stout shoots and relatively large cones, but differs in that Utah juniper is largely monoecious. Its cones take longer to mature (two growing seasons), and it is also markedly more cold-tolerant.

 

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Juniperus californica - Wikipedia