Juniper Christmas
by Mellissa Ray
Title
Juniper Christmas
Artist
Mellissa Ray
Medium
Digital Art - Photography ~watermark Does Not Appear On Final Product
Description
A young juniper tree in the High Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.
Of the sixty species of junipers worldwide, about fifteen species grow in North America. Their growth habit may be sprawling, low shrubs or upright trees; their growth depends upon the species and environment where they grow. Slow growing, mature trees are easily hundreds of years old.
Another desert attribute of the tree is that junipers can inhabit poor quality soils and thrive where others fail. At times they are a pioneer species, able to become established in altered landscapes. Of course, these plants will also take advantage of fertile and moist sites and may be found growing in canyon bottoms or sheltered sites.
To exist in these dry climates, juniper trees have stout taproots and for some species extensive lateral root systems that efficiently obtain moisture where none seems to exist. Junipers are also dimorphic, meaning they have two growth forms. Seedlings bear bluish-green awl-shaped leaves that are pointed at the tip possibly to discourage herbivores. Mature leaves are darker green and scalelike in appearance. This juvenile form may help reduce herbivores from devouring the young plants. The mature leaves are borne in pairs or whorls of three, are rounded at the tip and appressed to the twig. As the trees age, the trunks may become twisted or gnarled. Exactly why this habit occurs, no one knows. Stout single trunks or multiple stems originating from the ground are a couple of forms the trees exhibit.
Junipers are members of the cypress family (Cupressaceae) which includes cedars. The genus Juniperus is the old Latin name for the plant.
Occidentalis means “western” and indicates the range of this species. Western junipers occur in the Great Basin portion of eastern California, northwestern Nevada, eastern Oregon, and portions of eastern Washington and southwestern Idaho. In the Sierras, these junipers often grow at higher elevation, 7,000 to 10,000 feet, and resemble small sequoias. The trees occupy rocky habitats where other conifers cannot gain a roothold.
Long lived, western junipers may easily reach 800 to 1,000 years old. “Bennett Juniper” of Deadman Creek, California is over 85 feet tall and sports a 14-foot diameter. This tree is estimated to be somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 years old. Longevity is a verb for these trees.
The small scalelike leaves are 1/16 to 1/8 inch long and have a white resinous spot on the leaf’s upper surface. Bearing two to three seeds, the ¼ inch diameter cones take two years to mature. Sometimes western juniper fruits are fed to chickens to produce gin-flavored eggs.
As western junipers mature, the reddish bark becomes thicker and stringier. Similar to other junipers, western junipers do not attain a great height, but may average 40 feet tall. Trunks on older trees average 2 to 4 feet wide, but specimens up to 13 feet in diameter have been recorded
Uploaded
February 27th, 2017
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