Juniper berries that flavour gin are not berries at all
The blue beads that give gin its flavour are actually cones whose fleshy scales have fused into a berry-like ball. Junipers are conifers with no true fruit or flowers, and they are tough: one juniper forest in southeastern Tibet grows at 4,900 metres, forming one of the highest tree lines on the planet.
Juniperus belongs to the cypress family, and depending on who is counting it holds between 50 and 67 species. They range across the Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic down to tropical Africa, and take forms from trees 20 to 40 metres tall to low shrubs with long trailing branches. The seed cone, known as a galbulus, measures a few millimetres to nearly three centimetres and holds up to a dozen hard seeds. Most are blue, though some species produce red-brown or orange ones, and seeds can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months after pollination to mature.
Many species carry two kinds of foliage. Seedlings bear sharp needles up to about 25 millimetres long, while mature plants switch to tiny overlapping scales of 2 to 4 millimetres. Shaded shoots on older trees often keep juvenile needles, whereas branches in full sun wear the adult form. That prickliness is a handy identification clue, since young cypresses look similar but feel soft. Some species, such as common juniper, never produce scale leaves at all.
The seed coat is nearly waterproof, shielding the embryo but also imposing long dormancy that usually ends only when the coat is physically damaged. Birds and mammals swallow the cones whole, and the seeds survive the trip through the gut, which lets them travel long distances over several years. In warm climates, junipers may shed pollen several times a year, most between early winter and late spring.
Classification keeps shifting. A system built on molecular data up to 2013 recognised three sections: a single Mediterranean species with large woody cones, a group of about 14 species including the circumboreal common juniper, and a big section of around 60 species split fairly evenly between hemispheres. A 2022 treatment of gymnosperms elevated all three to separate genera. Eastern redcedar, Juniperus virginiana, ranges from southeastern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico despite its misleading common name.
Source: Juniper
