Conifer Trees Database

Description. Temple juniper is an evergreen coniferous species of shrub or small tree which will grow to matures heights of 20 to 32 feet (6 - 10 m) with a trunk up to inches (50 cm) in diameter, measured at breast height. This species is dioecious, with separate male and female plants.

• Leaves are needle-like, growing in whorls of three, colored bright green to yellowish-green, measuring 0.4 to 0.9 inch (10 - 23 mm)long and 0.04 to 0.05 inch (1 - 1.3 mm) broad, with a single white stomatal band on the inner surface.
  
• Pollen cones are yellow, measuring 0.12 to 0.2 inch (3 - 5 mm) long, and fall soon after shedding their pollen in spring.
  
• Seed cones are berry-like, green when young, ripening 18 months after pollination to dark purple or brownish with a variable whitish waxy coating; they are spherical, measuring 0.2 to 0.36 inch (5 -9 mm) in diameter, and have three (rarely six) fused scales in one(rarely two) whorls of three, each bearing a single seed (when six scales, only the three larger scales with seeds).
  
• Seeds are dispersed when birds eat the cones, digesting the fleshy scales and passing the hard seeds in their droppings.

Distribution. This species is native to Japan - Honshu (southward from Iwate Prefecture), northern Shikoku, and northern and central Kyushu growing at elevations of 300 to 3,000 feet (100 - 1,000 m) above sea level; Korea; China - Gansu, northern Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Shaanxi provinces in dry mountainous areas at up to 7,000 feet (2,200 m) elevation; rare in Russia, where in only occurs in southern Ussuriland, on limestone rocks and sandy seashores.

Hardy to USDA Zone 6 - cold hardiness limit between -10° and 0°F (-23.2° and -17.8°C).

It is grown as an ornamental tree, often planted in temple grounds in Japan. It is also often grown as bonsai subject.