Description:

• Monoecious or dioecious shrubs or trees with thin, shredding bark; branchlets terete, 3-6-angled, variously oriented but not in flattened sprays
• Leaves: juvenile leaves needle-like, usually in whorls of 3, spreading, acute to mucronate, with 1 or 2 pale bands on upper surface; adult leaves opposite, in 4 ranks, closely appressed to divergent, scale-like to subulate, free portion up to ± 10 mm long; abaxial gland visible or not, usually elongate, sometimes exuding white crystalline deposit
• Male cones with 3-7 pairs or trios of sporophylls, each sporophyll with 2-8 pollen sacs
• Female cones maturing in 1 or 2 years, globose to ovoid, fleshy, 3-20 mm in diameter, remaining closed, usually glaucous; scales persistent, in 1-3 pairs, peltate, tightly coalesced, usually thick and fleshy
• Seeds 1-3 per scale, round to faceted, wingless; cotyledons 2-6
• x = 11

Nomenclature:

• *Juniperus L.
  • Linnaeus: 1003 (1753)
  • Linnaeus: 461 (1754)
  • Welch: 84 (1986)
  • Adams: 412 (1993)
• Sabina Mill.
  • Miller: [247] (1754)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 60, temperate to subtropical northern hemisphere
• Southern Africa: Species 1: *Juniperus virginiana L., recorded as naturalised (Free State)