General: Usually a small, erect evergreen tree to 10 m tall, with conical form, but also a sprawling shrub less than 1 m; bark reddish-brown, scaly or fibrous and stringy.
Leaves: Mostly scalelike, opposite, not prickly, but young leaves needle-like, 5-7 mm long, in whorls of three on stem.
Cones: Seed cones fleshy, berrylike, 5-6 mm long, bluish-purple when mature, glaucous; pollen and seed cones on separate plants.
Notes: See J. horizontalis for discussion of hybridization.
1. Leaves awl-shaped, in whorls of 3, spreading; the berrylike fruits sessile in the leaf axils J. communis
1. Leaves mostly scalelike, opposite, appressed to stem; the berrylike-like fruits terminal on the branchlets.
2. Low, spreading or creeping shrubs; fruits recurved on short stalks J. horizontalis
2. Small trees or erect shrubs; fruits erect or nodding J. scopulorum
SourceThe Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
Note that since the publication of the Illustrated Flora, new species have been added to the BC flora, and are not incorporated in the keys.
Habitat / Range
Dry open, often calcareous, rocky soils in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; infrequent in S BC, rare northward to Telegraph Creek; E to SW AB and S to AZ, NM, CO and W NE.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A very shade-intolerant, montane, Western North American evergreen coniferous shrub distributed more in the Cordilleran than the Pacific region. Occurs predominantly in continental cool temperate and cool semiarid climates on excessively dry to very dry and nitrogen-medium (often alkaline) soils; its occurrence increases with increasing continentality and temperature. In the coastal region, very sporadic in openÂcanopy shrub communities on very shallow, water-shedding sites of calcium-rich rock outcrops; common in the coastÂinterior ecotone. Characteristic of moisture-deficient sites.
