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Monoecious Ashe Junipers?

by Bob Harms ()
Juniperus ashei, as many members of the genus Juniperus, is frequently characterized as having distinct male and female flowers on separate plants (dioecious); i.e., berries and pollen cones occur on separate trees. When a Juniperus species has both male and female flowers on the same plant (monoecious), this is generally noted in the taxonomic literature. For example, Robert P. Adams ("Juniperus" in Flora of North America 2:412-420, 1993) describes J. osteosperma (Utah juniper) as "monoecious" and J. californica (California juniper) as "dioecious (rarely monoecious);" but our hill country J. ashei as "dioecious" without qualification.

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Being unfamiliar with the female flower of our J. ashei, I set out in January (2000) to see what it looks like, given that the pollen cones were mature at this same period. To my surprise I found several trees with both pollen cones and ripe berries, both sexes being present within inches of each other on the same branch, as in the above image. [The fruit has ruptured under the pressure of the scanner cover.] These apparently monoecious trees were covered with pollen cones with only a few fruits. No trees which were primarily female in sex were found to also have pollen cones.

In the case of a mature (previous year's) fruit adjacent to male cones, the monoecious status of a tree may not be clear, since it is possible for individual trees of some Juniperus species to change their sex from year to year. [Personal communication from Robert P. Adams.] But subsequently I was able to verify that this is not the case with our population - the same trees showing both berries and pollen cones on the same branch in successive years.

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