Juniperus squamataBuch.-Ham. ex D.Don

Flaky JuniperHimalayan JuniperNepalese Juniperflaky juniper

WFO wfo-0000354918 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Juniperus squamata, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. a Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-10-13 / obs. 102057197

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
201653
Filed as
Juniperus squamata var. meyeri Rehder
Det. by
H. R. Loconte 1994-01-01
Collected
W. Bourne 1993-10-29
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. We link to the digitised sheet rather than rehosting it, because the holding institutions do not serve their images to third parties reliably and we are not going to show you a picture we cannot actually deliver. 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 sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 12 botanical countries

Regions where Juniperus squamata is native: Afghanistan, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Qinghai, Tibet, Assam, East Himalaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, West Himalaya AfghanistanChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastQinghaiTibetAssamEast HimalayaMyanmarNepalPakistanWest Himalaya
Native distribution of Juniperus squamata, 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
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Qinghai CHQ
Tibet CHT
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
East Himalaya EHM
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Pakistan PAK
West Himalaya WHM

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 319 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -8.4 °C -4.6 °C -1.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 10.8 °C 13.2 °C 23.5 °C
Annual rainfall 1,135 mm 3,386 mm 4,768 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 115 mm 291 mm 495 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 319 research-grade observations of Juniperus squamata 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 20 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 baimashanensis Y.F.Yu & L.K.Fu
  • Juniperus densa (Carrière) Gordon
  • Juniperus fargesii (Rehder & E.H.Wilson) Kom.
  • Juniperus franchetiana H.Lév. ex Kom.
  • Juniperus kansuensis Kom.
  • Juniperus lemeeana H.Lév. & Blin.
  • Juniperus recurva var. densa Carrière
  • Juniperus recurva var. squamata (Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don) Parl.
  • Juniperus squamata f. prostrata (Hornibr.) Rehder
  • Juniperus squamata subsp. fargesii (Rehder & E.H.Wilson) Silba
  • Juniperus squamata var. fargesii Rehder & E.H.Wilson
  • Juniperus squamata var. hongxiensis Y.F.Yu & L.K.Fu
  • Juniperus squamata var. meyeri Rehder
  • Juniperus squamata var. parvifolia Y.F.Yu & L.K.Fu
  • Juniperus squamata var. prostrata Hornibr.
  • Juniperus squamata var. squamata
  • Sabina lemeeana (H.Lév. & Blin.) W.C.Cheng & W.T.Wang
  • Sabina recurva var. densa (Carrière) Antoine
  • Sabina squamata (D.Don) Antoine
  • Sabina squamata var. fargesii (Rehder & E.H.Wilson) L.K.Fu & Y.F.Yu

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.