Rocky Mountain juniper
| Juniperus scopulorum | |
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| Juniperus scopulorum in North Dakota | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Pinophyta |
| Class: | Pinopsida |
| Order: | Pinales |
| Family: | Cupressaceae |
| Genus: | Juniperus |
| Species: | J. scopulorum |
| Binomial name | |
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Juniperus scopulorum Sarg. |
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| Natural range of Juniperus scopulorum | |
Juniperus scopulorum (Rocky Mountain juniper) is a species of juniper native to western North America, in Canada in British Columbia and southwest Alberta, in the United States from Washington east to North Dakota, south to Arizona and also locally western Texas, and northernmost Mexico from Sonora east to Coahuila. It grows at altitudes of 500–2,700 metres (1,600–8,900 ft) on dry soils, often together with other juniper species. "Scopulorum" means "of the mountains.
It is a small tree reaching 1.5-4.5 m (rarely to 6 m) tall, with a trunk up to 300 mm (rarely 600 mm) diameter. The shoots are slender, 0.7–1.2 millimetres (0.028–0.047 in) diameter. The leaves are arranged in opposite decussate pairs, or occasionally in whorls of three; the adult leaves are scale-like, 1–2 mm long (to 5 mm on lead shoots) and 1–1.5 millimetres (0.039–0.059 in) broad. The juvenile leaves (on young seedlings only) are needle-like, 5–10 mm long. The seed cones are berry-like, globose to bilobed, 6–9 millimetres (0.24–0.35 in) in diameter, dark blue with a pale blue-white waxy bloom, and contain two seeds (rarely one or three); they are mature in about 18 months. The pollen cones are 2–4 millimetres (0.079–0.157 in) long, and shed their pollen in early spring. It is dioecious, producing cones of only one sex on each tree.
One particular individual, the Jardine Juniper in Utah, is thought to be over 1500 years old, while a dead trunk found in New Mexico was found to have 1,888 rings; older trees in the same area are suspected to exceed 2,000 years.
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Wikipedia