Let  the Juniper needle your interest this Christmas
THE soft needles of the Juniper tree are usually described as an amazing symbol of Christmas festivity.
Many who cultivate this leafless plant decorate it at Christmas time in honour of significant moments in the life of the Holy Family: Joseph, Mary and the Baby Jesus.

Unique symbolism 

The unique symbolism of the Juniper tree is rooted in one of the many stories told about the flight of the Holy Family from Bethlehem to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod. Paranoid about the birth of a new king, Herod had decided to kill all male children under two years old in the village of Bethlehem, thereby eliminating the threat to his throne.
Warned about the imminent slaughter, the Holy Family fled Bethlehem, but with Herod’s soldiers in hot pursuit. Legend has it that the Juniper bush saved the lives of Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus during their flight into Egypt.
The narration is that, as the soldiers pursued them, the Holy Family fled through fields of peas and flax, and thickets of various shrubs, with hardly any cover in which to hide.
Then a Juniper bush growing nearby opened up its thick branches to enclose them. The inside of the large bush became a soft bed, sheltering the fleeing family, while needles on the outside branches grew as prickly as spears.
Herod’s soldiers could not penetrate the spiky branches of the Juniper, and passed the family by.
The Juniper has since been seen as a reminder of the miracle of Joseph, the baby Jesus and His mother, Mary, the Mother of God, during that period.

Family tree


The Juniper is an evergreen shrub or small tree of the cypress or Cupressaceae family. It grows slowly; few specimens get taller than five metres, although heights of up to 10 metres have been recorded elsewhere in its range.
The Juniper displays several different forms of growth, varying from erect and columnar to bushy, spreading or mat-forming and shrub-like.
Wanderer
The common Juniper has the largest geographic range of any woody plant in the world.
It is widespread in distribution, occurring from western Alaska throughout Canada and northern parts of the USA, in coastal areas of Greenland, in Iceland, throughout Europe, and in northern Asia and Japan.
Except for some low-lying areas around the Mediterranean, it is widespread in Europe, and occurs also in North Africa. In North America, the Juniper extends from beyond the northern limit of trees south to the Carolinas and the mountains of California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Breeding

Horticulturalists cultivate the Juniper with varying degrees of success locally, but the plant is not now available for sale as a plant, but as part of a floral arrangement of fresh, cut plants put together specifically for Christmas.
The Juniper can be had at Nesha’s Flower Land at Church Street, Cummingsburg, east of the National Library.
The Christmas Juniper is part of the Christmas Centre Pieces which comprise other imported Christmas plants, such as the poinsettia and the eucalyptus.
Proprietrix Nesha Deonauth promises that the tastefully designed Christmas Centre Pieces would outlast the holidays and endure well beyond, once properly cared for.