Juniperus scopulorum

Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum )

The Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum ) is a plant from the family of the cypress family ( Cupressaceae ). It is native to western North America.

Description

The Rocky Mountain juniper grows as evergreen, multi-stemmed tree einstämmiger or rare, can achieve the stature heights of up to 20 meters and diameter at breast height of up to 2 meters. The straight or ascending outgoing from the root branches form a cone-shaped to rounded crown. The branches go straight up or down from the branches of directed and have a three-to four polygonal cross section. The brown bark peels off in thin strips. The bark of thin twigs is smooth, while the thicker flakes off in sheets.

It also forms two different types of leaves. Both forms are light to dark green or bluish- green to blue-gray and have on the underside of leaves an unobtrusive, elliptical leaf gland. The leaf margins are entire. The needle-like leaves are 3 to 6 millimeters long. The scale leaves are shaped keel -shaped to rounded with a length of 1 to 3 millimeters and can overlap each other up to a fifth of its total length. Your projecting or adjacent blade tip is blunt or pointed.

The Rocky Mountain juniper is dioecious - getrenntgeschlechtig ( dioecious ). The berry cones usually are on a straight stem and are at a diameter 6-9 mm spherically shaped to bilobed. They are first dyed light brown and discolored maturity in the second year towards dark blue black and frosted. Heavily frosted cones appear to be colored light blue. Each of the resinous and fibrous pin carries one to three seeds. The seeds are 4-5 mm long.

The chromosome number is 2n = 22

Distribution and location

The natural range of the Rocky Mountain juniper is located in western North America. It extends there from British Columbia to the north along the Rocky Mountains to Chihuahua and Coahuila in Mexico in the south. To the east, it occurs also in some of the Rocky Mountains upstream mountain ranges.

The Rocky Mountain juniper grows at altitudes 0-2700 meters. It grows mainly on rocky and eroded soils on slopes.

Use

The Rocky Mountain juniper is used as ornamental plant use.

System

The first description as Juniperus scopulorum in 1897 by Charles Sprague Sargent in Garden and Forest, Volume 10 (505 ), page 420 synonyms for Juniperus scopulorum Sarg. Juniperus virginiana are subsp. scopulorum ( Sarg. ) A. E. Murray, Juniperus virginiana var scopulorum ( Sarg. ) Lemmon and Sabina scopulorum ( Sarg. ) Rydb ..

Where the distribution area of the Rocky Mountain juniper with that of the Virginian juniper (Juniperus virginiana ) and the creep of juniper (Juniperus horizontalis ) overlaps, leading to the formation of hybrids. The hybrids with the creeping juniper is called Juniperus x fassettii.

Threats and conservation

The Rocky Mountain juniper is " not endangered" than in the IUCN Red List. It is noted, however, that a re-examination of risk is necessary.

Swell

• Christopher J. Earle: Juniperus scopulorum. In: The Gymnosperm Database. www.conifers.org, November 28, 2012, accessed on January 1, 2013 ( English).
• Frank D. Watson, James E. Eckenwalder: Cupressaceae. Juniperus. In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee ( eds.): Flora of North America North of Mexico. Pteridophytes and Gymnosperms. Volume 2, Oxford University Press, New York et al 1993, ISBN 0-19-508242-7, Juniperus scopulorum ( this work is the same text online, Juniperus scopulorum - Online).