Juniper

Juniper (Juniperus sp.)

Juniper has a long history with man. In the Bible's Old Testament, a Juniper with an angelic presence sheltered the prophet Elijah from Queen Jezebel's pursuit. Similarly a later apocryphal biblical tale tells of how the infant Jesus and his parents were hidden from King Herod's soldiers by a Juniper during their flight into Egypt.

In Dutch, Juniper is called "geniver," from which came the name "gin". Gin is flavored with Juniper berries. In the nineteenth century Highland Juniper bushes were prolific enough for their berries to be collected by the bagful and taken to the Inverness and Aberdeen markets to be exported to the Dutch gin distillers. The berries are also used to flavour other alcoholic beverages such as a Swedish health beer and a French beer-like drink called 'genevrette' made from equal amounts of Juniper berries and barley. But Juniper is not only good for making martinis. Its berries (actually not berries at all, but a portion of the cone) were used by the Zuni Indians to assist in childbirth, by British herbalists to treat congestive heart failure and stimulate menstruation, and by American nineteenth-century herbalists to treat congestive heart failure, gonorrhea, and urinary tract infections.