Western juniper

[JUNIPERUS OCCIDENTALIS]

In winter, Western junipers sparkle with heavy loads of berries, attracting flocks of birds to snow-covered mountain slopes and desert uplands. Townsend’s solitaires establish territories around the most productive berry patches and defend them with loud warbling songs, while countless robins, waxwings and bluebirds join the harvest. Junipers provide berries that humans use to flavor their gin, but birds find them a reliable source of food at a time when few other choices are available. In turn, the diners play a role for the junipers, whose seeds only germinate after traveling through a bird’s digestive system, creating a symbiotic relationship, with the trees trading their fruit in exchange for effective seed dispersal.

NATURAL HISTORY

Junipers that grow on both slopes of the Sierra Nevada south to Big Bear Lake take on extraordinary forms as they develop slowly in extreme conditions. Most have stout trunks,

gnarled shapes and massive root systems that penetrate rock cracks and allow the trees to survive on sheer rock faces.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

In the Sierra Nevada, junipers have a characteristic cinnamon red bark, which complements their green, scale-like foliage and frosty blue berries.

Junipers that grow in desert regions of northeastern California have dark brown bark and are smaller and simpler in shape.