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Junipers — Part 1

Genus JUNIPERUS, Linn.

EVERGREEN trees or shrubs with pungent sap, thin, ragged bark, and short, much-divided ascending branches. Leaves usually of two kinds, linear, spiny, free, in whorls of 3 at each joint, or scale-like, blunt, in pairs, 2-ranked, opposite, and closely appressed to twigs. Flowers in small, inconspicuous aments, dioecious or rarely monoecious. Fruit berry-like, by coalescence of fleshy scales; seeds 1 to 6, wingless, bony. Wood soft, close grained, durable.