juniper - white "flowers" on branch tips??

Aaryn

I'm watching my first juniper as it grows through our first springtime together... and noticed something I've never heard of before. On many of the branch tips, there are white growths beginning that look like another set of scaly leaves or almost like little white flowers (barely larger than the tips of current foliage). Some of them are getting bulbous, and one looks like it's darkening up a little, seems slightly blue or blue-green.

Am I getting berries? I don't think so because the plant is so young. Farther up the "branches," (they're really just shoots and still green) there are little dark spots that almost look like mildew or dirt.

The tree is well-ventilated and I water the soil when it gets dry, not through the foliage, as it's damp here already (Seattle) most of the time.

Any ideas?

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md4958

Sounds like berries...get enough and you can brew some Gin!

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soonami

Yeah those are likely juniper berries. The reason why the tree seems too young to bear berries is because if it were a seedling it would be, but because junipers in nurseries are usually propagated by cuttings, these plants will have fruits (or are they cones?) much sooner. Vegatative propagation (cuttings, air layers, etc) of mature fruit-bearing trees results in offspring that generally bear fruit faster than seedlings. Ginkgo, wisteria, crab apples are good examples of this

JR_Roosa

I get those on my shimpaku juniper in the springtime, and I thought that they were berries the first time I saw them, but they turned out to be vigorous new growth at the tips of stems. This is as opposed to new growth along branches that seems to start out as a green nubbin.

I had a berry once, but it just seemed to show up one day...or at least I wasn't paying close enough attention to the tree to see its precursor.

-J.

Christiaan

This is nothing to worry about, I'm having the same white tips on two of my Shimpaku Junipers here, and IMHO it's just the beginning of new growth. If berries are starting to form, it will look like a greyisch green round bud.

soonami

you mean like these?

Mcspeed

Not to create a stir, but DO find out for sure, I have heard that a branch producing berries will loose its vigor, due to getting the primal reproduce urge out of the way. This could lead to slow, no, or reverse growth(die back). Let us know what you find out.