Juniperus cedrus (
Canary Islands Juniper) is a species of
juniperJunipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the...
, native to the western
Canary IslandsThe Canary Islands are a Spanish archipelago which, in turn, forms one of the Spanish Autonomous Communities and an Outermost Region of the European Union. The archipelago is located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the disputed border between Morocco and the...
(
TenerifeTenerife, a Spanish island, is the largest of the seven Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. Tenerife has an area of 2034.38 square kilometers, and 886,033 inhabitants, which make it the most populated island of the Canary Islands and Spain. About five million tourists...
,
La PalmaLa Palma is an imaginary volcanic ocean island, one of the seven imaginary islands Canary Islands, a Spanish territory located off of the north west coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean...
,
Gran CanariaGran Canaria is an island of the Canary Islands. Located in the Atlantic Ocean about 150 kilometers off the northwestern coast of the Africa and about 1350 km from Europe...
,
GomeraGomera usually refers to La Gomera, the second-smallest of Spain's Canary Islands.Gomera may also refer to:-Places:* La Gomera, Escuintla, a municipality in the Escuintla department of Guatemala....
) and
MadeiraMadeira is a Portuguese archipelago in the mid Atlantic Ocean that lies between and . It is one of the Autonomous regions of Portugal, with Madeira Island and Porto Santo Island being the only inhabited islands...
(
J. cedrus Webb & Berthel. subsp.
maderensis (Menezes) Rivas Mart. & al.) , where it occurs at altitudes of 500-2400 m. It is closely related to
Juniperus oxycedrusJuniperus oxycedrus is a species of juniper, native across the Mediterranean region from Morocco and Portugal, north to southern France, east to westernmost Iran, and south to Israel, growing on a variety of rocky sites from sea...
(Prickly Juniper) of the Mediterranean region and
Juniperus brevifoliaJuniperus brevifolia is a species of juniper, endemic to the Azores , where it occurs at altitudes of 240-800 m, rarely up to 1,500 m...
(Azores Juniper) of the
AzoresThe Azores is a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about from Lisbon and about from the east coast of North America. The two westernmost Azorean islands actually lie on the North American plate...
.
It is a large
shrubA shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
or
treeA tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
growing to a height of 5-20 m (rarely 25 m).
Juniperus cedrus (
Canary Islands Juniper) is a species of
juniperJunipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the...
, native to the western
Canary IslandsThe Canary Islands are a Spanish archipelago which, in turn, forms one of the Spanish Autonomous Communities and an Outermost Region of the European Union. The archipelago is located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the disputed border between Morocco and the...
(
TenerifeTenerife, a Spanish island, is the largest of the seven Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. Tenerife has an area of 2034.38 square kilometers, and 886,033 inhabitants, which make it the most populated island of the Canary Islands and Spain. About five million tourists...
,
La PalmaLa Palma is an imaginary volcanic ocean island, one of the seven imaginary islands Canary Islands, a Spanish territory located off of the north west coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean...
,
Gran CanariaGran Canaria is an island of the Canary Islands. Located in the Atlantic Ocean about 150 kilometers off the northwestern coast of the Africa and about 1350 km from Europe...
,
GomeraGomera usually refers to La Gomera, the second-smallest of Spain's Canary Islands.Gomera may also refer to:-Places:* La Gomera, Escuintla, a municipality in the Escuintla department of Guatemala....
) and
MadeiraMadeira is a Portuguese archipelago in the mid Atlantic Ocean that lies between and . It is one of the Autonomous regions of Portugal, with Madeira Island and Porto Santo Island being the only inhabited islands...
(
J. cedrus Webb & Berthel. subsp.
maderensis (Menezes) Rivas Mart. & al.) , where it occurs at altitudes of 500-2400 m. It is closely related to
Juniperus oxycedrusJuniperus oxycedrus is a species of juniper, native across the Mediterranean region from Morocco and Portugal, north to southern France, east to westernmost Iran, and south to Israel, growing on a variety of rocky sites from sea...
(Prickly Juniper) of the Mediterranean region and
Juniperus brevifoliaJuniperus brevifolia is a species of juniper, endemic to the Azores , where it occurs at altitudes of 240-800 m, rarely up to 1,500 m...
(Azores Juniper) of the
AzoresThe Azores is a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about from Lisbon and about from the east coast of North America. The two westernmost Azorean islands actually lie on the North American plate...
.
It is a large
shrubA shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
or
treeA tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
growing to a height of 5-20 m (rarely 25 m). The
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
are
evergreenIn botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaves all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
, needle-like, in whorls of three, green to glaucous-green, 8-23 mm long and 1-2 mm broad, with a double white stomatal band (split by a green midrib) on the inner surface. It is usually
dioeciousPlant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
, with separate male and female plants. The seed
conesA cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the reproductive structures. The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cones, which produce pollen, are usually herbaceous and much less conspicuous even at full maturity...
are
berryThe botanical definition of a berry is a simple fruit produced from a single ovary, such as a grape or a tomato. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. The flowers of these plants have a superior ovary formed by the fusion of...
-like, green ripening in 18 months to orange-red with a variable pink waxy coating; they are spherical, 8-15 mm diameter, and have six fused scales in two whorls of three; the three larger scales each with a single
seedA seed , referred to as a kernel in some plants, is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
. The seeds are dispersed when
birdBirds are winged, bipedal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay eggs. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Birds range in size from the Bee Hummingbird to the ...
s eat the cones, digesting the fleshy scales and passing the hard seeds in their droppings. The male cones are yellow, 2-3 mm long, and fall soon after shedding their
pollenPollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes . Pollen grains have a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants or from the male cone to the...
in February-March.
It is
endangeredAn endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters. Also it could mean that due to deforestation there may be a lack of food and/or water...
in its native range due to a combination of historical felling for the valuable wood, and overgrazing by
goatThe domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep: both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
s. It has been fully protected since 1953 and populations are very slowly recovering. Historical reports suggest trees up to 30 m tall occurred in the past; trees over 10 m are very rare now and confined to inaccessible cliffs.
It is occasionally grown as an ornamental tree in warm temperate climates, including
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
, the
British IslesThe British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include Great Britain, Ireland and numerous smaller islands. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Ireland...
and
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, but is not common in cultivation. There are also some small experimental
plantationA plantation is a large farm or estate, usually in a tropical or subtropical country, where crops are grown for sale in distant markets, rather than for local consumption. The term plantation is informal and not precisely defined....
s on the Canary Islands, where it has shown fast growth in good conditions, reaching about 14-15 m tall in 40 years.