Juniperus scopulorumSarg.

Red-cedarRiver JuniperRocky Mountain JuniperRocky Mountain Red-CedarRocky Mountain juniperRocky Mountain redcedarseaside juniper

WFO wfo-0000354991 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Juniperus scopulorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. a Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 204688943
Juniperus scopulorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. b Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204702109
Juniperus scopulorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. c Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204692575
Juniperus scopulorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. d Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204539550
Juniperus scopulorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. e Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204628998
Juniperus scopulorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. f Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204553491
Juniperus scopulorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. g Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204539038
Juniperus scopulorum, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. h Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204532907

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
18251
Filed as
Juniperus scopulorum Sarg.
Det. by
G. M. Ferguson 2007-01-01
Collected
E. A. Mearns 1887-06-01
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 17 botanical countries

Regions where Juniperus scopulorum is native: Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, Colorado, Idaho, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming AlbertaArizonaBritish ColumbiaColoradoIdahoMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew MexicoNorth DakotaOregonSouth DakotaUtahWashingtonWyoming
Native distribution of Juniperus scopulorum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
Arizona ARI
British Columbia BRC
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
Nevada NEV
New Mexico NWM
North Dakota NDA
Oregon ORE
South Dakota SDA
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,980 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -13.4 °C -8.9 °C -4.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.3 °C 26.8 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 300 mm 453 mm 695 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 33 mm 63 mm 121 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,980 research-grade observations of Juniperus scopulorum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 10 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Juniperus excelsa Pursh
  • Juniperus maritima R.P.Adams
  • Juniperus occidentalis var. pleiosperma Engelm.
  • Juniperus scopulorum f. columnaris (Fassett) Rehder
  • Juniperus scopulorum var. columnaris Fassett
  • Juniperus virginiana subsp. scopulorum (Sarg.) A.E.Murray
  • Juniperus virginiana var. montana Vasey
  • Juniperus virginiana var. scopulorum (Sarg.) Lemmon
  • Sabina maritima (R.P.Adams) Y.Yang & K.S.Mao
  • Sabina scopulorum (Sarg.) Rydb.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.