Juniperus morrisonicola

Hayata (1908)

Common names

Yushan juniper, 玉山圓柏 Yùshān yuánbǎi [Chinese] (lit. Jade Mountain Taiwan juniper).

Taxonomic notes

Juniperus morrisonicola is a member of the turbinate-seed-cone clade of central Asia, which contains about 20 taxa, most of which are high-elevation shrubs of very similar appearance. Traditionally it has generally been treated as a variety of J. squamata, which it very closely resembles, and molecular evidence shows it to share a clade with J. squamata and J. tibetica (Adams and Schwarzbach 2012, 2013). Both J. tibetica and J. morrisonicola might reasonably be treated as infraspecific taxa of J. squamata, although J. tibetica has not been so described.

Synonymy:

• J. squamata sensu Kanehira non Buch.-Ham.;
• Sabinella morrisonicola (Hayata) Nakai; and
• Juniperus squamata Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don var. morrisonicola (Hayata) H.L.Li & H.Keng.

Description

Dioecious (occasionally monoecious) evergreen trees or shrubs to 10 m tall and 100 cm dbh, with long, decumbent branches. Bark brown, exfoliating in thin plates. Twigs ascending. Leaves all decurrent, densely arranged, concave and whitish above, grooved and green below, 3-5 × 1 mm, apex mucronate. Seed cones greenish-brown, maturing in 1 year, purple-black at maturity, subtended at the base by several bracts, ovoid to globose, 6-8 mm long, containing 1 seed. Pollen shed in spring (Li 1975, Adams 2014).

Distribution and Ecology

Taiwan: "central ranges at high altitudes of over 3,000 meters, the highest growing conifer of the island, forming a dense scrub or on open, exposed slopes growing as a tree" (Li 1975). Hardy to Zone 5 (cold hardiness limit between -28.8°C and -23.3°C) (Bannister and Neuner 2001, variety not specified).

This species has not been recognized by the IUCN and thus has no formal conservation status. I can find no evidence that any other authority has assessed its vulnerability.

Remarkable Specimens

Ke et al. (2009) describe finding a tree on Xueshan with dbh 174 cm.

Ethnobotany

No data as of 2026-01-30.

Observations

Reported collections (HAST 1999) include:

• Yushan National Park, 3950 m, growing 2 m high in a sunny and dry place.
• Nantou Xian: 121°02'50"E, 23°30'50"N, 3200-3600 m. Abundant on exposed rocky slope above tree line. Gnarled shrub ca. 1.4 m tall.
• Kaohsiung Xian: 3150 m. Ca. 1.5 m high, trunk ascending, growing adjacent to steep cliffs.

Ke et al. (2009) describe a trip to see exceptionally old trees on Xueshan.

Yushan National Park seems like the best place to go see it; Nelson (2025) asserts that Yushan "covers only 3% of Taiwan’s land area but is home to more than half of Taiwan’s native plants, including 27 species of conifers."

Remarks

The epithet designates the type locale: the summit area of Mount Morrison (today called Yushan).

Citations

Adams, R. P. 2014. Junipers of the World: The Genus Juniperus, 4th ed. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publ. Co.

Adams, R. P., and A. E. Schwarzbach. 2012. Taxonomy of the turbinate shaped seed cone taxa of Juniperus, section Sabina: sequence analysis of nrDNA and four cpDNA regions. Phytologia 94(3):388-403. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2026.01.29.

Adams, R. P., and A. E. Schwarzbach. 2013. Taxonomy of the turbinate shaped seed cone taxa of Juniperus, section Sabina: Revisited. Phytologia 95:122–124. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2026.01.29.

Hayata, B. 1908. New Conifers from Formosa. Gardeners' Chronicle ser. 3, 43:194. Available: Google Books, accessed 2012.10.29.

Herbarium of the Research Center For Biodiversity, Academia Sinica, Taipei [HAST]. 1999. Database output at http://www2.sinica.edu.tw:8080/hast/eindex.html, accessed 1999.03.15, now defunct.

Ke Jinyuan, Chen Jiali, Chen Qingzhong, and Chen Zhongfeng. 2009. Thousand-year-old Chinese cypress. https://e-info.org.tw/node/40369, accessed 2026.01.30.

Nelson, Catherine. 2025.01.02. January Plant Profile: Juniperus morrisonicola. UW Botanic Gardens Blog, accessed 2026.01.30.

See also

Chen, Cherry. Silent Guardians: Remarkable Juniper Tree Paintings. https://magnifissance.com/arts/juniper-tree/, accessed 2026.01.30. This article celebrates the recent (2021-2025) paintings of Lee Tsung-jen, devoted to images of ancient Yushan junipers.

Huang 1994 (the Flora of Taiwan).