Kalifornische wacholder

Description

Juniperus californica is a shrub or small tree reaching 3-8 metres (9.8-26.2 ft), but rarely up to 10 metres (33 ft) tall. The bark is ashy gray, typically thin, and appears to be "shredded".The shoots are fairly thick compared to most junipers, between 1.5 and 2 millimeters (0.059 and 0.079 inches) in diameter.Foliage is bluish-gray and scale-like. The leaves are arranged in opposite decussate pairs or whorls of three; the adult leaves are scale-like, 1 to 5 mm (0.039 to 0.197 in) long on lead shoots and 1 to 1.5 mm (0.039 to 0.059 in) broad. The juvenile leaves (on seedlings only) are needle-like, 5 to 10 mm (0.20 to 0.39 in) long.The cones are berry-like, 7 to 13 mm (0.28 to 0.51 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 8-9 months. The male cones are 2 to 4 mm (0.079 to 0.157 in) long, and shed their pollen in early spring. It is largely dioecious, producing cones of only one sex, but around 2% of plants are monoecious, with both sexes on the same plant.It is closely related to Juniperus osteosperma (Utah Juniper) 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's also markedly more cold-tolerant.