Gymnosperms (Seed Producing Plants: Conifers, Cycads, Ginkgo) • Earth.com

Mexican juniper

(Juniperus flaccida)

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Description

Juniperus flaccida (drooping juniper, weeping juniper or Mexican juniper; Native American names include tláscal) is a large shrub or small tree reaching 5–10 m (rarely to 15 m) tall. It is native to central and northern Mexico (from Oaxaca northward) and the extreme southwest of Texas, United States (Brewster County). It grows at moderate altitudes of 800-2,600 m, on dry soils. The bark is brown, with stringy vertical fissuring. The shoots are strongly pendulous, 1-1.2 mm diameter, and often borne in flattened sprays (the only juniper commonly showing this character). The leaves are arranged in opposite decussate pairs; the adult leaves are scale-like, 2–4 mm long (to 7 mm on lead shoots) and 1-1.5 mm broad. The juvenile leaves (on young seedlings only) are needle-like, 5–10 mm long. The cones are berry-like, 8–20 mm in diameter, green maturing brown, and contain 6-12 seeds (the most seeds per cone of any juniper); they are mature in about 18 months. The male cones are 3–5 mm long, and shed their pollen in spring. It is largely dioecious, producing cones of only one sex on each tree. Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa, throughout parts of western, central and southern Asia, east to eastern Tibet in the Old World, and in the mountains of Central America. The highest-known juniper forest occurs at an altitude of 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) in southeastern Tibet and the northern Himalayas, creating one of the highest tree lines on earth. Junipers vary in size and shape from tall trees, 20–40 metres (66–131 ft) tall, to columnar or low-spreading shrubs with long, trailing branches. They are evergreen with needle-like and/or scale-like leaves. They can be either monoecious or dioecious. The female seed cones are very distinctive, with fleshy, fruit-like coalescing scales which fuse together to form a "berry"-like structure (galbulus), 4–27 millimetres (3⁄16–1+1⁄16 in) long, with one to 12 unwinged, hard-shelled seeds. In some species, these "berries" are red-brown or orange, but in most they are blue; they are often aromatic and can be used as a spice. The seed maturation time varies between species from 6 to 18 months after pollination. The male cones are similar to those of other Cupressaceae, with 6 to 20 scales.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Coniferophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order:Pinales
Family:Cupressaceae
Genus:Juniperus
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