Juniper: From the Plant and Flower Alphabet
GRANITE BAY DESIGN PLANT & FLOWER ALPHABET
Depending on the taxonomy, 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.
Junipers vary in size and shape from tall trees, 20–40 metres (66–131 feet) 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 berrylike structure (galbulus), 4–27 millimetres (3⁄16–1+1⁄16 inches) long, with one to 12 unwinged, hard-shelled seeds.
Engravings from “Handbook of Plant and Floral Ornament from Early Herbals” by Richard G. Hatton (Originally published in 1909).
Plant descriptions primarily from Wikipedia.
