Guest Article

High Altitude Juniper in Trouble

By Deborah Long
(Conservation Officer, Plantlife Scotland)

Juniper is one of the most adaptable and widespread shrubs in the UK. It grows from the coast right up to 975 m, as far as we know, and has the widest distribution of all our native conifers. The Scottish Highlands are the UK stronghold for common juniper (Juniperus communis), while prostrate juniper (Juniperus ssp. nana) is a montane heath species largely restricted to the north and north west of Scotland. Juniper grows in a number of forms from upright to prostrate, while prostrate juniper does what it says – it is always prostrate.

Juniper right across the UK is in serious decline: its main problem is that bushes are generally old and losing their ability to produce fertile seed. This is compounded in the hills by isolation. Juniper is a shrub that is either male or female so for the production of fertile seed, both sexes need to be present. Prostrate junipers in the hills are usually isolated and are rarely seen with berries.

In addition, juniper is invariably threatened by either under or over grazing. At higher altitudes, lack of grazing isn’t a problem. The main problems are the isolated bushes and overgrazing, which is potentially removing young seedlings. In addition, juniper is a slow growing shrub, particularly at higher altitudes, and responds badly to burning. Muirburn at high altitudes could be damaging parent plants.

But we need to find out more. We don’t know how the juniper in our uplands is faring. How many bushes are there? Are they producing seed? And what are they threatened by – burning or over grazing?

These are some of the reasons why Plantlife has launched a new survey to look at the distribution, estimated age and health of juniper. We know least about juniper across Scotland, Cumbria, Northumberland and North Wales and are particularly keen for information from those areas. In addition, because we know so little about juniper growing at higher altitudes, we want to encourage walkers, climbers and mountaineers to help us out. So we have designed special, quick to fill in forms to get some information on junipers from those folk who regularly wander past juniper in the hills, probably often without noticing it! If you are going out onto the hill over the next year, when snow cover is poor enough to be able to see the low growing, prostrate juniper, which let’s face it, could be all year round, take a form with you! It will only take a few minutes but the results will help us identify what we need to do to save our struggling montane junipers.

Fill the form in and post it back to us by 1 October 2005, or better still, enter the details on our website. Full instructions are given in the survey form, which is available at http://www.plantlife.org.uk/ or from the Plantlife hotline 01722 3427 55 (leave your name, address and state mountain juniper survey).

The first 50 returned forms will receive a bottle of Juniper Green Organic Gin.