Home
Shrubs or trees evergreen. Branchlets terete, 3--6 angled, variously oriented, but not in flattened sprays. Leaves opposite in 4 ranks or in whorls of 3. Adult leaves closely appressed to divergent, scalelike to subulate, free portion to ca. 10 mm (to ca. 15 mm in Juniperus communis ); abaxial gland visible or not, elongate to hemispheric ( J . ashei ), sometimes exuding white crystalline deposit. Pollen cones with 3--7 pairs or trios of sporophylls, each sporophyll with 2--8 pollen sacs. Seed cones maturing in 1 or 2 years, globose to ovoid and berrylike, 3--20 mm, remaining closed, usually glaucous; scales persistent, 1--3 pairs, peltate, tightly coalesced, thick and fleshy or fibrous to obscurely woody. Seeds 1--3 per scale, round to faceted, wingless; cotyledons 2--6. x = 11.
Shrubs and trees when young or throughout life with linear spiny leaves in whorls of 3 or paired, or when adult with scale-like, opposite leaves or mixed foliage, usually dioecious. Cones on short branchlets or males axillary, of rounded, shield-shaped scales bearing 2–6 pollen sacs; females of 2–4 series of scales in pairs or whorls of 3, each with 1–2 ovules; mature cone fleshy, with few to 1 seed with woody testa.
Female cones indehiscent, berry-like or drupe-like, usually colored (commonly bluish), the several scales coalescent and somewhat fleshy at maturity; seeds 1–10 per cone, wingless; male cones with numerous microsporophylls; dioecious or occasionally monoecious shrubs or small trees with scale-like or needle-like lvs opposite or whorled in 3’s; 2n=22. 60, mainly N. Temp.
Female strobili on short lateral shoots, of 2–8 usually decussate fleshy scales each bearing one ovule; mature strobilus a berry-like fruit, the scales swollen, fleshy and confluent.
Leaves usually decussate, elliptic, appressed, imbricate and small on mature plants but subulate and spreading on juveniles.
Male cones of several rounded decussate scales bearing 2–6 pollen-sacs.
Evergreen trees or shrubs, monoecious or dioecious.
Seeds 1 or few; testa woody.
