Common juniper - both beautiful and healthy

Among all the evergreen shrubs, the common juniper stands out. This plant is a long-liver, some shrubs are more than 300 years old. Juniper is a dioecious plant, representatives of different sexes have differences in appearance: male cones are yellow, oval in large numbers at the ends of the branches, and female cones are pale green, almost imperceptible, but after pollination they become large, grow and turn into cones. In the first year, the fruit is green, and when it ripens, it becomes shiny, black, covered with a bluish bloom. At the top of the berry there is a characteristic three-pointed seam.
Juniper needles are prickly, long, green in color, with sharp ends, reaching up to 16 mm in length.

Pharmacological properties of common juniper

Juniper has the following effect on the human body:

• diuretic;
• choleretic;
• enhances the secretion of gastric juice;
• has a bactericidal effect;
• increases appetite;
• liquefies phlegm and facilitates its secretion in diseases of the respiratory system.

How are juniper fruits harvested?

The berries are picked in autumn, when they are fully ripe, which means they have become black and blue. In order to collect the fruits, you just need to shake the bush - they will crumble themselves. Then the berries are dried, best of all, of course, in the open air, thus the qualities of the juniper are the least affected.

Where does this plant grow?

Favorite places of common juniper are undergrowth of dry pine forests, tops of sand dunes, spruce forests with excessive moisture, spruce-pine forests in Belarus, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Siberia.