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Juniperus sabina L.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Juniperus sabina' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/juniperus/juniperus-sabina/). Accessed 2024-04-20.

Common Names

  • Common Savin

Synonyms

  • J. sabina var. cupressifolia Ait.

Glossary

apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
bloom
Bluish or greyish waxy substance on leaves or fruits.
dimorphic
Occurring in two forms.
glaucous
Grey-blue often from superficial layer of wax (bloom).
globose
globularSpherical or globe-shaped.
synonym
(syn.) (botanical) An alternative or former name for a taxon usually considered to be invalid (often given in brackets). Synonyms arise when a taxon has been described more than once (the prior name usually being the one accepted as correct) or if an article of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature has been contravened requiring the publishing of a new name. Developments in taxonomic thought may be reflected in an increasing list of synonyms as generic or specific concepts change over time.
variety
(var.) Taxonomic rank (varietas) grouping variants of a species with relatively minor differentiation in a few characters but occurring as recognisable populations. Often loosely used for rare minor variants more usefully ranked as forms.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Juniperus sabina' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/juniperus/juniperus-sabina/). Accessed 2024-04-20.

A shrub reaching in certain conditions 10 to 15 ft in height, but usually less than half as high; the whole plant emitting a strong, aromatic odour when bruised. The habit is usually stiff and spreading. Leaves of two types; the juvenile awl-shaped, and the adult scale-like. Juvenile leaves in opposite pairs, spine-tipped, 1⁄8 to 1⁄6 in. long, the concave upper side glaucous, except on the margins. The scale-like, genuinely adult leaves are on very slender branchlets, and about 1⁄20 in. long, green, bluntish at the apex, thickened and rounded at the outside, which is marked about the centre with a sunken gland. As in other junipers with dimorphic foliage, there is an intermediate state in which the leaves are larger and more pointed than the fully adult ones. Plants either uni- or bi-sexual. Fruits globose or broadly top-shaped, 1⁄3 to 1⁄4 in. diameter, dark brown, ultimately covered with a blue bloom, and containing usually two seeds.

Native of the mountains of Central and S. Europe, where it is chiefly, but not invariably, found on limestone; also of W. Russia as far east as the Altai. It was cultivated in England in the first half of the 16th century. It is one of the handsomest and most useful of dwarf evergreens, especially for elevated and chalky districts. It is easily increased by cuttings.

Although J. sabina var. cupressifolia Ait. is clearly a synonym of J. sabina L., the plants cultivated under the name are usually dwarf; the example in the Nisbet collection in the R.H.S. Garden at Wisley fruits freely.

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

Although some new cultivars of this species have been introduced, none seems to be of much importance for this country, most being selections made in the USA from seed collected in Russia, which are of value for their great hardiness, or for their resistance to the juniper blight disease prevalent in some parts of the USA.

var. tamariscifolia – The distribution of this variety in the wild is uncertain. Only one locality is mentioned in Hegi’s Flora von Mitteleuropa (near Zermatt). Roy Lancaster tells us that he saw a stand in the Spanish Pyrenees.

'Knap Hill'

Resembling the Pfitzer juniper in habit but lower and denser. Foliage fine, adult. Raised at the Knap Hill nurseries in the early 1920s. It has been wrongly considered to be synonymous with the Pfitzer juniper.

'Musgrave'

Of low, spreading habit. Leaves glaucous, some juvenile but loosely appressed, others adult. It arose in C. Musgrave’s garden at Hascombe, Surrey.

var. tamariscifolia Ait

A low spreading shrub with most of the leaves of the juvenile type, borne in opposite pairs or in threes, bright green. The form often seen in gardens makes a fine architectural plant with closely tiered branches. It is not a geographical variety, but is occasionally met with in the wild.

'Variegata'

A dwarf shrub with close branches whose younger parts are tipped with creamy white.

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