PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Juniperus / Drooping Juniper
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Cupressaceae family

Drooping Juniper Juniperus flaccida

Native
Also known as: Mexican Drooping Juniper · Weeping Juniper

Drooping Juniper is a perennial tree native to the lower 48 states. It grows to 34 ft.

More about this plant

Juniperus flaccida is a large shrub or small tree reaching 5–10 metres tall. It is native to central and northern Mexico and the extreme southwest of Texas, United States. It grows at moderate altitudes of 800–2,600 metres, on dry soils. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 10 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
34 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Evergreen scale-leaved
In the garden
Sub-canopy / understory layer — Sits in the understory of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~42 caterpillar species

Juniperus supports ~42 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a strong genus.

Recorded feeding on Juniperus in North America, including:

Abagrotis glenni · owlet moth Abagrotis hennei · owlet moth Abagrotis mirabilis · Black Cedar Dart Aethes rutilana · leafroller moth Argyresthia affinis · ermine moth Argyresthia alternatella · ermine moth
+ 8 more species →
Argyresthia annettella · ermine moth Argyresthia cupressella · ermine moth Argyresthia freyella · ermine moth Argyresthia quadristrigella · ermine moth Argyrotaenia cockerellana · leafroller moth Bucculatrix inusitata · ribbed cocoon-maker moth Celypha cespitana · leafroller moth Choristoneura fumiferana · Spruce Budworm
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (17) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[09] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[12] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[13] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[14] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)
[15] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[16] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[17] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…