Juniper Berry :: Botany

retem BerryJuniper is a short evergreen shrub whose harvest-home and oil provides a flavoring agent used extensively in the food, perfume, and soap industries. Juniper berry is probably best known as the unique flavoring agent of gin, an important component of the dry martini, a popular intoxicant and a putative calmative revered by Hesperian culture for over 300 years. As a medicative remedy, juniper bush has a long history of use employed as a treatment for numerous diseases by ancient Greek and Arab healers, as wholesome as Native American Indians.(2) Juniper berries have been used since the sixteenth century in herbal medicines. They ar rich in vitamin C, explosive oils and other nutrients. (11) The junipers atomic number 18 also used in aromatherapy, which is the use of necessary oils through inhalation, massage, bathing, or ingestion to create heavy health and beauty. The erudition of aromatherapy can be traced back over 5000 years to the Egyptians. The practice of em ploying the essences of plants for medicinal and therapeutic beauty treatments is thousands of years old. (10) The scientific name of juniper is genus Juniperus communis. It belongs to the family Cupressaceae. Common names include juniper berry, genepro, and enebro. (7) The genus has about 60 to 70 species of aromatic evergreen trees or shrubs distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. (6) About 15 species occur in North America. (7) Juniper foliage may be scale-like, needle-like, or both, and it often has a distinctive odor that can be detected from quite a distance. (1) The juvenile leaves of a juniper are needle-like and the older leaves are scale-like. Mature leaves are awl-shaped, spreading, and arranged in pairs or in whorls of three. Some species have small, scale-like leaves, often bearing oil glands that are pressed closely to the rounded or four-angled branchlets. Male and effeminate productive structures usually are borne on separate plants (6), so only female tre es have fruit. (1) The reddish brown or bluish cones are heavy(a) and berrylike and often have a grayish, waxy covering. (6) Their fruits are subdued and look like blue berries, and are round cones, but they are softer than most and they have a blue, red, or copper color. They mature in I to 3 seasons and contain I to 12 seeds, usually 3. (6) at that place are three junipers native to the Pacific Northwest, but chances are good that western juniper is the only one you will see.