Nature Bulletin No. 362-A   December 13, 1969
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:JUNIPERS

Many years ago, on a farm in hilly regions of the Middle West, the 
Christmas tree was apt to be a "cedar" selected from those that 
punctuated the hillsides and pastures. According to the notebooks kept 
by the first surveyors of Cook County, in the 1830' s, there were cedars 
here. If we had them now they would not only add character and 
beauty to the landscape, especially in winter, but also furnish food and 
cover for many birds and small mammals.

Actually, this tree is a juniper, known commercially and in tree books 
as Eastern Redcedar. The name "cedar" is very confusing. Instead of 
being used for one type of evergreen -- such as pine, spruce, fir or 
hemlock -- it has been applied to junipers, whitecedars, cypresses and 
other kinds of trees. None of the true cedars is native to this country 
but the Cedar of Lebanon, the Atlas Cedar from the mountains of 
North Africa, and the Deodar of "god tree" of the Himalayas have been 
extensively planted for ornamental purposes.

Junipers have distinctive fruits: small cones in which the waxy scales 
are fused together to form a fleshy "berry". On some species these 
berries are red-brown or orange but on most they are blue and very 
aromatic. Junipers are also peculiar in that they have two types of 
evergreen leaves. Seedlings and the young twigs of older trees have 
small needle-like leaves. Most of the branches on mature trees are 
covered with tiny overlapping scale-like leaves. There are about 40 
species of junipers, widely distributed throughout the northern 
hemisphere. Some of these vary in size and shape from tall columnar 
forms to low cones or spreading platter-like shrubs with long trailing 
branches. Both native and foreign kinds of junipers, including many 
horticultural varieties, are widely used in landscaping. Of eleven 
species native in North America, two are found in Illinois.

Best known is the Eastern Redcedar found from Canada to the Gulf, 
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 20 to 50 
feet tall with a short trunk from one to two feet in diameter. On 
bottomlands in southern states it may live to be 300 years old, more 
than 100 feet tall, and more than 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.

The redcedar's fine-grained brittle wood -- pinkish red to brownish 
red, surrounded by a thin layer of white sapwood -- is very fragrant, 
very light and very durable in soil. It is in great demand for pencils, 
cigar boxes, fence posts, poles, woodenware, canoes, and lining for 
clothes chests and closets. Moths avoid it. Cedar oil is distilled from 
the twigs and leaves. Because of its shreddy reddish bark, which peels 
off in narrow fibrous strips, the French called it baton rouge, meaning 
"red stick".

The common Juniper is a smaller tree, very variable and more likely to 
be a low spreading shrub. It ranges from the Arctic to Pennsylvania, 
Illinois and through the Rockies, as well as northern Europe and Asia, 
In the west we have the Utah or Desert juniper and the Sierra juniper. 
In the southwest there are four species, including the burly Alligator 
juniper with its thick bark checkered into scaly squares. Many of the 
earliest prehistoric people lived in or near the pinon pine and juniper 
forests which furnished them food, fuel, and wood for shelter or 
utensils.