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

Pinchot juniper

(Juniperus pinchotii)

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Description

Juniperus pinchotii, commonly known as Pinchot juniper or redberry juniper, is a species of juniper native to south-western North America, in Mexico: Nuevo León and Coahuila, and in the United States: south-eastern New Mexico, central Texas, and western Oklahoma. It grows at 600–2,100 m altitude. Juniperus pinchotii is an evergreen coniferous shrub or small tree growing to 1–6 m tall, usually multistemmed, and with a dense, rounded crown. The bark is pale gray, exfoliating in thin longitudinal strips, exposing orange brown underneath. The ultimate shoots are 1.1–1.8 mm thick. The leaves are scale-like, 1–2 mm long and 0.5–1.5 mm broad on small shoots, up to 12 mm long on vigorous shoots; they are arranged in alternating whorls of three or opposite pairs. The juvenile leaves, produced on young seedlings only, are needle-like. The cones are berry-like, with soft resinous flesh, subglobose to ovoid, 5–8 mm (rarely 10 mm) long, orange-red, often with a pale pink waxy bloom, and contain one or two seeds; they are mature in about 12 months from pollination. The male cones are 3–4 mm long, and shed their pollen in fall. It is usually dioecious, with male and female cones on separate plants, but occasional monoecious plants can be found. 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.

Taxonomic tree:

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