Scientific name: Juniperus navicularis Gandoger 1910
Synonyms: Juniperus oxycedrus var. transtagna (Franco) Silba, Juniperus oxycedrus subsp. transtagna Franco
Common names:Transtagus juniper
Description
Upright shrub to 2 m with dense branches. Bark light gray, thin, peeling in longitudinal strips. Crown bushy, irregular, with spreading to stiffly upright branches, the tips sometimes drooping. Branchlets roundly three-sided, upright. Adult leaves in widely spaced, alternating trios, needlelike, standing out from and jointed at their attachment to the twig, 4-12 mm long, 1-1.5 mm wide, dark green, with two waxy, white, shallow stomatal furrows above and a ridge below, the tip spiny. Pollen and seed cones on separate plants. Pollen cones single on a very short stalk in the leaf axils, egg-shaped, 1-2 mm long, with four to eight alternating trios of pollen scales. Seed cones single on short stalks in the leaf axils, approximately spherical, 7-10 mm long, red to reddish brown, glossy or occasionally with a thin waxy coating, maturing in 2 years. Seeds (one or) two or three (or four), 5-12 mm long, brown.
On dunes and in scrub along and beside the seashore, replacing subspecies macrocarpa in southwestern Portugal.
Conservation Status
Red List Category & Criteria: Near Threatened
(This subspecies has been found (collected) primarily in a region around and to the south of Lisbon in low-lying, sandy areas near estuaries or the coast since the middle of the 19th century. Urbanisation has spread in these areas substantially in the last century, so that it is very likely that suitable habitat has irreversibly disappeared. On the other hand large protected areas have been created and the taxon is still also present outside these, so it is not known if the decline inferred for the past is still continuing. For this reason it falls short of the criteria for EN B2ab and is here flagged as Near Threatened)
References
Farjon, A. (2010). A Handbook of the World's Conifers. Koninklijke Brill, Leiden.
Eckenwalder, J.E. (2009) Conifers of the World: The Complete Reference. Timber Press, Portland.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Cambridge, UK /Gland, Switzerland
Copyright © Aljos Farjon, James E. Eckenwalder, IUCN, Conifers Garden. All rights reserved.
