common juniper
jumiperus communis


Most frequently found in old rocky meadows and on
mountain sides above the treeline.
Low evergreen shrub,
branches spread horizontally.
They touch the ground, often send down roots.

Fruit ripens in late summer, they're about a quarter inch
in diameter and blue, covered with white, powdery bloom.
During winter months seeds can be mistaken for a dust of snow.

Serves as cover for small mammals
and valuable roosting and nesting sites for birds.
Dried cones of outer members of the pine family disperse
their seeds in the wind, but juniperus, by keeping its fleshy scales,
attracts animals, they eat its fruit and pass it in their droppings.
Birds feed on the fruits, different species eat them in different ways.
Robins, Jays & Mockingbirds just pick off the fruits,
tilt back their heads, and swallow them whole.
Chickadees hold the fruits in their feet,
peck out seeds, and let the pulp fall to the ground.
Mice and red squirrels eat juniper fruits, the Red Squirrel
is reported to depulp the seeds as the Chickadee does.
Some fruits grow especially large.
Fruit that has a small hole, when opened, it may be
hallow and filled with tiny black particles.
Some of the other large fruits will have no holes in them,
inside a small larva will be eating away.
This is a small wasp called a Chalcid Fly,
a species that lays its eggs in the developing
juniper fruit, then bores a hole to the outside and leaves.
Black particles in these fruits are the larva droppings.
Distorted fruits that have housed the wasp larvae are concidered
gull and called Juniper Berry Wasp Gulls.