Plant Description
Nearly always multi-trunked and more shrub-like than other junipers with open round crown and limbs well-hidden by lower branches. Crown rounded.
Multi-stemmed shrub or tree; male and female cones on separate plants. Bark fibrous, exfoliating in strips. Branchlets erect. Leaves scale-like, <1/8 inch, undersides have conspicuous glands. Seed cones reddish-blue to brownish-blue, juicy.
Habitat
Found on dry hills, plains, and plateaus, often mixed with ponderosa and pinyon pines and other juniper species. More common north of Prescott, Arizona.
Leaves
Scale-like leaves and whip leaves; scale-like leaves small, compact, keeled, taper to a point, to 1/16 inch long, tight and crowded on the twig in opposite pairs resulting in a slightly square twig, with elongate glands, most without white secretions.
Flowers
Gymnosperm, no flowers; pollen shedding February to April.
Fruit
Pea-size berry-like round cones to 1/4 inch in diameter, usually maturing in 1 year. Reddish-blue at maturity and covered with a bluish waxy substance. 1 to 2 seeds per cone. Stays soft and juicy at maturity.