Juniperus communis, the Common Juniper, is a species in the genus
Juniperus, in the family
Cupressaceae. It has the largest range of any
woody plant, throughout the cool
temperate Northern Hemisphere from the
Arctic south in mountains to around 30°N latitude in
North America,
Europe and
Asia.It is a
shrub or small
tree, very variable and often a low spreading shrub, but occasionally reaching 10 m tall. Common Juniper has needle-like leaves in whorls of three; the leaves are green, with a single white stomatal band on the inner surface. It is
dioecious, with male and female cones on separate plants, which are wind pollinated. The seed
cones are
berry-like, green ripening in 18 months to purple-black with a blue waxy coating; they are spherical, 4–12 mm diameter, and usually have three (occasionally six) fused scales, each scale with a single
seed. The seeds are dispersed when
birds eat the cones, digesting the fleshy scales and passing the hard seeds in their droppings. The male cones are yellow, 2–3 mm long, and fall soon after shedding their
pollen in March–April.
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