Juniperis communis Juniper

JUniperus communis berries
©Bob Gibbons /Plantlife

A prickly shrub in the Cypress family with short spiky leaves.

Juniper has insignificant yellow flowers, followed by ‘berries’, actually fleshy cones, that start green but ripen to blue-black, and are used to flavour gin and some meat dishes.

It grows in pine woods or on moors and wind-swept coastal dunes in Scotland, but on heaths and limestone grassland or cliffs in the south of England. Formerly frequent in Britain, many of its large population areas have shrunk, and small ones have almost disappeared, but this is hard to estimate as the individual bushes are very long-lived and disguise the lack of new seedlings.

The two main threats to its future are excessive grazing and loss of grazing altogether. Excessive grazing prevents seedling development, whereas loss of grazing leads to development of tough scrub and tree cover which in turn causes shade that slowly kills the plants. Bush fires are also a threat.