California Juniper (A Floral Guide to Walker Ridge)

California Juniper

Juniperus californica

Summary ³

Juniperus californica (California Juniper) is a species of juniper native to southwestern North America; as the name implies, it is mainly found in California, although its range also extends through most of Baja California, a short distance into the Great Basin in southern Nevada, and western Arizona. It grows at moderate altitudes of 750 to 1,600 meters (2,460 - 5,200 ft).

Description ⁴

More info for the term: xeric

California juniper is a native conifer that is adapted to xeric sites
[35,36]. As a seedling under 12 inches (30cm) in height, it is shade
dependent [24]. Its growth is crooked, forked, and multistemmed [6].
Its branches are stiff with irregular stems [25].

Its scalelike leaves are denticulate at the margins, glandular, pitted
on the back, and bluntly pointed [22,25]. The leaves occur in whorls of
two.

At maturity, California juniper reaches 3 to 15 feet (1-4.5 m),
occassionally reaching 40 feet (12 m) in height [19,25,31].

Each fruit contains one to two seeds, and the ripe berries are reddish
brown [19,25].

Distribution ⁵

More info for the term: tree

California juniper is distributed from Shasta County, California, south
as far as Baja California Norte [6,21]. California juniper occurs
through the inner Coast Ranges and in interior cismontane southern
California to the western slope of the southern Sierra Nevada. It
occurs on desert slopes from the western edge of the Colorado Desert and
Joshua Tree National Monument to Kern County, California [25].
California juniper also occurs in isolated parts of Nevada and Arizona,
near their border with California [7]. It is cultivated in Hawaii [41].

Habitat characteristics ⁶

More info for the term: tree

California juniper most commonly occurs in pinyon-juniper woodlands that
border and integrate with chaparral along desert margins [14,24]. This
woodland type also occurs with montane forest elements, with Joshua tree
woodland, and with coastal sage scrub [14,15]. California juniper is a
dominant species in desert chaparral [14].

California juniper occurs in a climate that has mild, moist, sunny
winters and hot, dry summers. Most precipitation falls between December
and April, with annual precipitation ranging from less than 12 to more
than 40 inches (300-1,000 mm) at higher elevations [14,26]. Winter
temperatures range from 25 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 - 18 deg C), and
summer temperatures range from 55 to more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit
(12-38 deg C). The growing season of California juniper is 340 to 360
days [14].

Soils of chaparral are porous, rocky, coarse, and sandy or silty. These
soils are low in clay and in nutrients in comparison to agricultural
soils. These soils are also very shallow [14]. California juniper also
occurs on alluvial fans and steep slopes [14,15,38].

The altitude at which California juniper occurs varies as follows
[5,15,26]:

Location Feet Meters
Christmas Tree Pass, NV 3,220-4,020 975-1,218
Sonoran Desert, CA 3,500-10,000 1,060-3,030
San Beradino and
San Gabriel Mountains, CA 3,000-9,000 900-2,700

California juniper is most commonly associated with singleleaf pinyon.
Associates other than those previously mentioned vary between habitats.
Montane conifer forest associates are mentioned in the Distribution and
Occurrence frame. Pinyon-juniper woodland associates are
mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpus spp.), bitterbrush (Purshia spp.),
snakeweed (Gutierrizia brecteata), narrowleaf goldenweed, and California
buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) [15,38]. Desert edge and chaparral
associates include oaks (Quercus spp.), blackbrush (Coleogyne
ramosissima), creosotebush (Larrea divaricata), chamise (Adenostoma
fasciculatum), manzanita (Arctostaphylos spp.), ceanothus (Ceanothus
spp.), birchleaf mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpus spp.), desert
bitterbrush (Purshia glandulosa), Dorrs sage (Salvia dorii), and
cliffrose (Cowania spp.) [15,26,31,38].

Fire ecology ⁷

More info for the term: fire-sensitive species

California juniper is a nonsprouting, fire-sensitive species [15]. It
may depend on protected areas to survive fires. Unburned "islands" of
California juniper were observed on a lightly burned slope [34].
Frequency of fire in grasslands prevents California juniper from
becoming a dominant species in those areas. Several years are required
for nonsprouting species to set seed [39]. In the pinyon-juniper type,
fires are infrequent due to sparse understory growth [15].

Sources and Credits

(c) charlie dubbe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by charlie dubbe
(c) Tom Scott, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Tom Scott
Adapted by dlimandri from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juniperus_californica
Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24636587
Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24636580
Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24636589
Adapted by dlimandri from a work by Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24636592

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