Juniperus oxycedrus L.
Eng.: Mediterranean juniper, prickly juniper. Spa.: Enebro de la miera, cada. Fre.: Cade, genévrier cade, oxycédre, genévrier oxycédre. Ara.: Araar, ettaga, ttaga. Tam.: Taga, tagga, taqqa, taka, teka, teki, tiqqi, tilkit, tirki, tamerbut.
Evergreen shrub or small tree, dioecious, up to 15 m in height, very twiggy, irregular in appearance but ± rounded or ovate-conical. Trunk, up to 1 m in diameter, can be straight or tortuous. Sometimes large junipers are branched from the base. Bark fibrous, greyish-brown, that detaches into narrow strips. Leaves on the branchlets in whorls of 3, the whorls are spaced out giving a much less dense general appearance than J. communis. Leaves acicular, semirigid or rigid, generally spiky, angular, green, with two narrow whitish bands across longitudinally on the upper side of the leaf. Male cones ovoid, globose or elongated, yellow, born solitary in the leaf axils. Galbuli or female cones (0.8-1.5 cm) reddish-brown, red or purple, fleshy, globose or ovoid, covered or not in a waxy white-bluish powder.
Flowering:
February to May.
Fruiting:
Throughout the summer-winter of the second year.
Habitat:
There have been three subspecies described in North Africa, selective about their habitat. The subsps. oxycedrus and badia grow in a variety of dry soils in the interior (up to 3,150 m), and subsp. macrocarpa grows on rocky-sandy coastal soils and dunes in beaches.
Distribution:
Mediterranean region, from the Atlantic to the north of Iran. In North Africa it is well distributed from the Mediterranean to the Sahara.
Observations:
Highly polymorphic species, from which a number of subspecies, varieties and forms have been cited, some of which are considered with specific range by certain botanists. Currently, in North Africa, the 3 subspecies mentioned are accepted (Med-Checklist, Flora iberica, Index SFAN, IUCN Red List), which basically differ in the leaves and galbuli.
J. oxycedrus subsp. oxycedrus (J. oxycedrus subsp. rufescens Debeaux, J. rufescens Link) has small leaves (8-20 × 1-1.5 mm) and galbuli (8-10 mm) green when young and reddish when mature, without a waxy powder when young.
J. oxycedrus subsp. badia (H. Gay) Debeaux, (considered by us with specific range as J. badia (H. Gay) Rivas Mart., Molero Mesa, Marfíl & G. Benítez), of larger size, with terminal branches hanging and internal red bark, has somewhat larger leaves (12-20 × 1.2-2 mm) and galbuli (10-13 mm) chestnut-yellowish when young and chestnut-purple when mature, with a waxy powder when young.
J. oxycedrus subsp. macrocarpa (Sibth. & Sm.) Neilr (quite different and accepted by various authors also with specific range as J. macrocarpa), it has large leaves (20-25 × 2-2.5 mm) and larger galbuli (12-15 mm) with a waxy powder when young, besides its particular coastal habitat.
Sometimes junipers are seen with very dense green twigs that look like those J. turbinata or J. thurifera. They are not twigs of juniper, they belong to a hemiparasitic plant that grows on juniper branches: Arceuthobium oxycedri (DC.) M. Bieb.
Conservation status:
A common species, widely distributed, that does not appear to be threatened. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species it is listed at a global level as Least Concern (LC) (Farjon, 2013). In Algeria it is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012).