Arkansas Tree Database

Scientific name:

Juniperus Virginiana

Size:

25' tall by 15' wide, up to 60' tall

Leaves:

opposite, simple, scale-like, aromatic; dark blue-green, going off color in winter

Flowers:

inconspicuous

Fruit:

attractive blue cone (looks like a berry); soft, juicy, sweetish, and resinous, ripening in first year

Fall Interest:

needled evergreen, turning off color, reddish brown, in winter

Culture:

sun; tolerant of very dry soils

Disease/Insect:

cedar apple rust (don't plant near apple trees), bagworm

Use:

hedge, screen; heartwood red, sapwood whitish; used for pencils, fenceposts, chests, furniture

Cultivars:

Notes:

thin reddish brown bark exfoliating in long fibrous strips; tallest of the junipers; native to Arkansas commonly on bluffs and cliffs where wild fires could not reach, until human settlement suppressed fires allowing red cedar to spread