Common Name: Arizona juniper

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Tree

General: Evergreen small tree or large shrub 1-4.5 m with spreading branches forming an irregular, open crown; bark is shreddy but formed close to trunk, ashy gray to brown; multi-trunked at base.

Needles: Erect branchlets with tricussate, scalelike, appressed leaves green to light green, abaxial glands obvious and elliptic to ovate.

Cones: Dioecious terminal pollen cones, 3-4 mm long, oblong; seed cones terminal, 10-12 mm long, spheric to ovoid, bluish but maturing blue-brown to reddish-brown the second year; dry, hard, and fibrous.

Seeds: Ovulate cones contain 1-3 seeds per, ovate to pyriform, grooved, tip acuminate.

Ecology: Found on dry, well-drained soils in full sun, from 4,000-6,500 ft (1372-1981 m); flowers October-November.

Distribution: AZ, sw NM; south to n MEX.

Notes: The complex of Juniperus can be confusing in the field, but with berries (cones) this species stands apart. Distinguished by the soft, fleshy, sweet cones <8mm long which are pink to yellow-orange to dark red (as opposed to red-blue and brown-blue in J. monosperma). Absent that, it can be difficult to distinguish it from J. monosperma in the field, except for the two is the glands on J. arizonica are covered (more than 25 percent) by conspicuous white resin. This species was previously treated as a subspecies of the more widespread J. coahuilensis but based off of DNA evidence is separated from that species (more closely related to J. osteosperma) has recently been elevated to the species level.

Ethnobotany: Used for fuelwood and posts, mats, saddles, fleshy cones were ground for flour. Seeds when dried used for beads, often as measure of protection.

Etymology: Juniperus is the Latin name for Juniper, arizonica is named for the type specimen being from Arizona.

Synonyms: Juniperus coahuilensis var. arizonica

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015