Juniperus californica, the California juniper, is a species of juniper native to southwestern North America. Description Juniperus californica is a shrub or small tree reaching , but rarely up to tall. The bark is ashy gray, typically thin, and appears to be "shredded". The shoots are fairly thick compared to most junipers, between in diameter. The foliage is bluish-gray and scale-like. The juvenile leaves (on the seedlings) are needle-like and long. Arranged in opposite decussate pairs or whorls of three, the adult leaves are scale-like, long on lead shoots and broad. The cones are berrylike, in diameter, blue-brown with a whitish waxy bloom, turning reddish-brown, and contain a single seed (rarely two or three). The seeds are mature in about 8 or 9 months. The male cones are 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. The California juniper is closely related to the Utah juniper (J. osteosperma) from further east, which shares the stout shoots and relatively large cones, but differs in that Utah juniper is largely monoecious. Its cones take longer to mature (two growing seasons), and it is also markedly more cold-tolerant. Distribution and habitat As the name implies, it is mainly in numerous California habitats, although its range also extends through most of Baja California, a short distance into the Great Basin in southern Nevada, and into northwestern Arizona. In California it is found in: the Peninsular Ranges, Transverse Ranges, California Coast Ranges, Sacramento Valley foothills, Sierra Nevada, and at higher elevation sky islands in the Mojave Desert ranges. It is also found off of the North American continental shelf, on Guadalupe Island in the Pacific Ocean, where there are less than 10 individuals. It grows at moderate altitudes of . Habitats include: pinyon–juniper woodland with single-leaf pinyon (Pinus monophylla); Joshua tree woodland; and foothill woodlands, in the montane chaparral and woodlands and interior chaparral and woodlands sub-ecoregions. Conservation The species is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as least concern, and not considered globally threatened. However, one of the southernmost populations, formerly on Guadalupe Island off the Baja California Peninsula coast, was almost destroyed by feral goats in the late 19th century, with only a few plants remaining. Ecology J. californica provides food and shelter for a