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Juniperus Osteosperma

Juniperus Osteosperma is also known as Juniperus utahensis or Sabina osteosperma . Its common name is Utah Juniper. It is the most common tree in the Great Basin. It can be found all around southern Idaho, southern Montana, western Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and southestern California. The Utah Juniper has many uses for man, including construction, fence posts, firewood, Christmas trees and even pencils. The Utah Juniper can reach up to 26 feet tall. The Utah Juniper is very tolerant to drought, but is very easily burned because its tissue can become very dry. The Utah Juniper has blue berries that are marble size and have a powdery coating. The bark sheds in strips that are gray-brown.

Juniper

Juniperus osteosperma (Utah Juniper) is a shrub or small tree reaching 3-6 m (rarely to 9 m) tall. It is native to the southwestern United States, in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, western New Mexico, western Colorado, Wyoming, southern Montana, southern Idaho and eastern California. It grows at moderate altitudes of 1,300-2,600 m, on dry soils, often together with Pinus monophylla.

The shoots are fairly thick compared to most junipers, 1.5-2 mm diameter. The leaves are arranged in opposite decussate pairs or whorls of three; the adult leaves are scale-like, 1-2 mm long (to 5 mm on lead shoots) and 1-1.5 mm broad. The juvenile leaves (on young seedlings only) are needle-like, 5-10 mm long. The cones are berry-like, 8-13 mm in diameter, blue-brown with a whitish waxy bloom, and contain a single seed (rarely two); they are mature in about 18 months. The male cones are 2-4 mm long, and shed their pollen in early spring. It is largely monoecious with both sexes on the same plant, but around 10% of plants are dioecious, producing cones of only one sex.