Juniperus maritima
| Juniperus maritima | ||||||||||||
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Juniperus maritima |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Juniperus maritima | ||||||||||||
| RP Adams |
Juniperus maritima is a plant from the family of the cypress family (Cupressaceae). It is native to the northwest coast of the United States and the southwest coast of Canada. For a long time the species was subordinated to the Rocky Mountain Juniper ( Juniperus scopulorum ) and only recognized as an independent species on the basis of genetic studies.
description
Juniperus maritima is very similar in appearance to the Rocky Mountain Juniper ( Juniperus scopulorum ). The species grows as an evergreen , single-stemmed, rarely multi-stemmed tree that can reach heights of growth of up to 23 meters. The branches rise from the trunk and form a conical to rounded crown . The branches are straight to pendulous and have a triangular to square cross-section. The dark brown bark peels off in thin strips. Thin twigs have smooth bark while those of thicker twigs flake off in plates.
Two different shapes of leaves are formed. Both forms are dark green in color and have an inconspicuous, elliptically shaped leaf gland on the underside of the leaf . The leaf margins are entire. The needle-shaped leaves are 3 to 6 millimeters long. The scale sheets are keel-shaped to rounded with a length of 1 to 3 millimeters and can overlap each other up to a fifth of their total length. Your protruding or adjacent leaf tip is blunt.
Juniperus maritima is dioecious-separated sexes ( diocesan ). The berry cones are usually on a straight stem and are spherical to bilobed in shape with a diameter of 6 to 9 millimeters. They are initially light brown in color and when they are ripe they turn dark blue-black after 14 to 16 months and are frosted. Heavily frosted cones appear to be light blue in color. Each of the resinous and fibrous cones bears one to three seeds. The seeds are 4 to 5 millimeters long.
Distribution and location
The natural range of Juniperus maritima is on the coast of western North America. It occurs there around the Puget Sound from Whidbey Island in the south to Lasqueti Island and the adjacent coast of Vancouver Island in the north.
Juniperus maritima grows mainly on rocky soils near the coast which have formed on granite . A deposit also grows on sand dunes .
Systematics
It was first described as Juniperus maritima in 2007 by Robert Phillip Adams in Phytologia , Volume 89, Page 278. The species was previously assigned to the Rocky Mountain Juniper ( Juniperus scopulorum ) and is now transcribed on the basis of investigations carried out by Adams on the terpenoids and the internal spacer traded as a separate species in ribosomal DNA . However, the two species differ only slightly in their morphological properties. Thus Juniperus maritima only dark green leaves and its berry cones already mature after 14 to 16 months rather than two years as Juniperus scopulorum . Furthermore, the stocks are geographically separated by about 140 kilometers.
Hazard and protection
Juniperus maritima is not on the IUCN Red List .
swell
- Christopher J. Earle: Juniperus maritima. In: The Gymnosperm Database. www.conifers.org, November 23, 2012, accessed January 4, 2013 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Christopher J. Earle: Juniperus maritima. In: The Gymnosperm Database. www.conifers.org, November 23, 2012, accessed January 4, 2013 .
- ↑ a b c Christopher J. Earle: Juniperus scopulorum. In: The Gymnosperm Database. www.conifers.org, November 28, 2012, accessed January 4, 2013 .
- ↑ Juniperus maritima. In: The Plant List. www.theplantlist.org, accessed January 4, 2013 .
