From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
| Eastern juniper | ||||||||||||
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| Juniperus virginiana |
The Eastern juniper (Juniperus virginiana), is a widespread North American species, often also called Eastern Redcedar (though it is unrelated to the cedars), and found from eastern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, east of the Great Plains. It is a dense slow-growing tree that may never become more than a bush on poor soil but is ordinarily from 6-15m (20-50 feet) tall with a short trunk from 30-60cm (1-2 feet) in diameter. On bottomlands in southern states of the USA, it may live to be 300 years old, more than 30 m (100 ft) tall, and more than 120 cm (four feet) in diameter. Its sky blue berries are used to flavor gin and as kidney medicine. They furnish winter food for wildlife and the tiny wingless seeds are scattered by birds. This species is a host for Apple rust.
- The fine-grained brittle wood -- pinkish red to brownish red, surrounded by a thin layer of white sapwood -- is fragrant, very light and very durable in soil. It is in demand for pencils, cigar boxes, fence posts, poles, woodenware, canoes, and lining for clothes chests and closets. Moths avoid it. Juniper oil is distilled from the twigs and leaves. Because of its shreddy reddish bark, which peels off in narrow fibrous strips, French traders named Baton Rouge, Louisiana (meaning "red stick") after poles of Eastern Juniper set up in the area by local Indians to mark hunting territiories.
