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Juniper berries are actually modified conifer cones.. A juniper berry is the female seed cone produced by the various species of junipers.It is not a true berry but a cone with unusually fleshy and merged scales called a galbulus, which gives it a berry-like appearance.
Juniper berries are a spice used in a wide variety of culinary dishes and are best known for the primary flavoring in gin (and responsible for gin's name, which is a shortening of the Dutch word for juniper, jenever). A juniper-based spirit is made by fermenting juniper berries and water to create a "wine" that is then distilled.
The fruit are berry-like cones known as juniper berries. They are initially green, ripening in 18 months to purple-black with a blue waxy coating; they are spherical, 4–12 mm ( 5 ⁄ 32 – 15 ⁄ 32 in) diameter, and usually have three (occasionally six) fleshy fused scales, each scale with a single seed.
The seed cones are round, 3 to 5 mm (1 ⁄ 8 to 3 ⁄ 16 in) long, and soft, pulpy and berry-like, green at first, maturing purple about 8 months after pollination. They contain one or two seeds , which are dispersed when birds eat the cones and pass the seeds in their droppings.
Seeds are dispersed by a variety of mammals and birds. Mammals include jackrabbits (mostly the black-tailed jackrabbit Lepus californicus spp.) rodents and to a lesser extent by coyotes (Canis latrans). [6] Most notable among the birds that disperse juniper berries is the Townsend's solitaire (Myadestes townsendi). [7]
The seeds are mature in about 8 or 9 months. The male cones are 2 to 4 mm (1 ⁄ 16 to 3 ⁄ 16 in) long and shed their pollen in early spring. This juniper is largely dioecious, producing cones of only one sex, but around 2% of plants are monoecious, with both sexes on the same plant. [6]