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Juniper - Latin name: "Juniperuc sabina"
Rhode juniper has over 70 species, native to the northern hemisphere from the polar zone to the mountains in the tropics. Striking, evergreen, aromatic, single or dioecious shrubs (sometimes prostrate), or small trees with needle-like or scaly needles, with fruits - shishkoyagodami, blue-black, rarely red-brown, aromatic and spicy, the shell which is formed from fused scales.
Other names: juniper, bruzhdevelnik, mozhevel, juniper, berries Tetraonidae, Veres, Black Grouse bush.
Botanical characteristics of juniper: evergreen treelike shrub to 2 - 3 m, with evergreen needles, 2-3 m tall or tree to 12 m tall, with thick trunk to 10 - 12 see (I have personally witnessed the trunks that could not clasp hands, but only in the Crimea) needles of juniper is a modified leaf. They are short, sharp needle, located in 3 pieces ie whorled. The plant is dioecious. The fruit in the form of berries consist of intergrown dense scales, like cones of coniferous trees, so they are called shishkoyagodami. Male cones are yellow, small. Female cone consists of the lower covering scales and the three upper ploduschih, which has one ovule. After fertilization ploduschie scales swell and become fleshy and fuse to form a fetus - shishkoyagodu. Fruits at first green, when ripe - black with a bluish waxy bloom. Blossoms in the spring, the fruits ripen in the second year in autumn.
Has a long history of use of juniper in folk medicine and household sanitation, perfume and even magical rites. Products made of juniper retain all the properties of this noble tree. The non rotting, fragrant and beautiful treated wood juniper at all times is very valued.
Juniper berries seasoned meat of animals which in nature feed on this plant, to be exact game. At the same time as a condiment used not for their own berries, and the marinade or sauce, to which they belong (aromatic sauce and marinade).
Using juniper berries, we must remember that the rate of their consumption is very low, up to 5-6 berries per 1 kg of meat in large quantities, they are dangerous. Do juniper berries than usual should not be confused with poisonous Cossack juniper berries, which differ in color (black and blue) and the presence of two seeds inside the fruit, in addition, the Cossack juniper leaves no needle, and flat, pressed.
At home, juniper berries are used in the manufacture of kvass, beer, fruit drinks, jelly, various soft drinks, with pickles and pickling products.
In shishkoyagodah juniper contains up to 40% grape sugar, 2.6% organic acids (malic, acetic, formic), coloring agents, up to 2% essential oil (which consists of terpenes camphene, Kadina, terpineol, borneol, pinene, etc. ), resin, wax, and trace elements (manganese, iron, copper, aluminum) in the needles - up to 266 mg of vitamin C in the crust - up to 8% tannins. It grows almost throughout the country, in pine or mixed forests, forest edges and mountain slopes. Mainly on open ground. It often occurs as undergrowth in pine forests and coniferous-small-leaved forests. Again only by seeds.
