Juniper Berries

I love this time of year mainly because of the changing colors of the leaves, but also because the berries of so many shrubs and other woody plants become more prominent.

Here are some beautiful Juniper berries: 

 The berries of this Juniper are a waxy, blue color and cluster closely together. I think the blue is so striking against the green of the needle-like/scale-like leaves.

Actually, the berries on Junipers are not actually berries at all. They are cones, growing only on the female plants. Junipers are dioecious, which means that individual plants are either male or female (unlike most other plants where male and female parts exist on the same plant). So the female juniper plants produce the berries (cones) and the male plants produce the pollen.  

Various types of junipers have different uses:
The spicy-smelling berries of Juniperus communis (Common juniper) are the predominant flavor in Gin.
The fragrant wood of Juniperus virginiana (Eastern Red Cedar) is used for cabinets, fences and pencils.
The wood of Juniperus phoenicea (Mediterranean Phoenician juniper) is burned as incense.
(Encyclopedia Britannica)


I found a recipe for making Gin on ehow.com. It calls for 10g of juniper berries (that's about 1/4lb) - which is a lot of berries! I'm not sure this little shrub will produce that many... nor that I would want to even distill my own either. But I think it's still a pretty cool fact!