Creeping juniper
Juniperus horizontalis
Also called Ground cedar, Horizontal juniper
- Cree
- mih-kwápémakwahtikᒥᐦᑳᐧᐯᒪᑲᐧᐦᑎᐠ
Know another name for this plant, or a different spelling? Tell us.
A low mat-forming evergreen of dry slopes and gravel, with blue berry-like cones. Both the greens and the berries are used, and the smoke is used to clean a space.
Speak with someone who knows this plant before you harvest it.
Take care
- Juniper is not taken internally in pregnancy, and is avoided by people with kidney trouble. This is a well-documented caution and it should be taken seriously.
- Some ornamental junipers planted in towns are different species. Do not gather from planted beds.
What it is confused with
Easily confusedRocky Mountain juniper Juniperus scopulorum
The same family and also used, but it grows as an upright small tree rather than a flat mat.
How to know it
- Habit
- Lies flat along the ground in wide mats, rarely more than knee high, often draped over the lip of a coulee.
- Leaves
- Tiny overlapping scales pressed against the twig on mature growth, with prickly needle-like juvenile growth mixed in.
- Berries
- Round, hard, dusty blue with a whitish bloom. They are cones, not true berries, and take two years to ripen.
- Smell
- Sharp and resinous, like cedar, when crushed.
The country it grows in
- Coulee slopes
- Sandy and gravelly ground
- Open prairie
- Foothills and shrubland
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Berries August to OctoberTake only the fully blue, soft-ripe ones. Green berries are unripe.
- Leaves January to December
Right now it is July. Something on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Smudge and ceremony
- Breathing and colds
Sprigs are dried and burned to clean a room or a set of belongings.
Berries are documented in use across the plains, though the amounts used were small.
How it is prepared
- Dried and stored
Dry small sprigs flat. Berries dry hard and keep for a long time.
- Smudge
A few dried sprigs smoulder with a sharp cedar-like smoke.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.
Juniper mats grow very slowly. A mat the size of a blanket can be decades old, so clip a little from many places rather than cutting one patch back hard.