← All plantsJuniper
Juniperus communis
Also: Common juniper, Juniper berry
WarmingDryingTonifying
A resinous berry that disinfects the bladder and warms a cold gut.
A spreading evergreen shrub of dry, rocky ground with prickly needles and blue-black berries that are really fleshy cones, two to three years in the ripening. Juniper warms digestion and moves water through the kidneys, carrying its antiseptic oils through the urinary tract.
- Energetics
- Warming, drying, toning
- Taste
- Resinous, piney, bittersweet
- Family
- Cupressaceae (cypress family)
- Parts used
- Ripe berries (cones)
Medicinal uses 4
The tags sort the evidence behind each use by kind. Members are able to tap a condition to compare every herb for it.
TTraditional useLLab and mechanism studiesCClinical studies
A traditional urinary antiseptic for bladder infections in chilly, damp constitutions, used in short courses.
A warming carminative for gas, bloating, and a cold, sluggish stomach.
Rubbed on in oil or liniment, warms stiff, aching joints.
A strong tea of the berries makes an antiseptic wash.
Preparations
Berry tea and tincture in short courses, culinary berries, and antiseptic washes.
Members are able to see the amounts, ratios, and methods for each preparation, search by condition, and match herbs to your constitution.
Cautions
- Use only the berries of common juniper. The leaves and essential oil are toxic, and so are several other junipers, savin above all.
- Leave it out with kidney disease or a kidney infection, and keep internal courses to 4 to 6 weeks.
- It may lower blood sugar; watch readings if you take diabetes medicine.
Medication interactions
Practitioner Practitioners are able to see the 2 types of medicine flagged for juniper, each with the mechanism and what to do. The plain-language cautions above stay open to everyone.
Pregnancy & breastfeeding
PregnancyAvoid
Juniper stimulates the uterus and is one of the classic herbs once used to end pregnancies. It is avoided in every form during pregnancy.
BreastfeedingAvoid
Its action on the uterus and its kidney-irritating oils keep it out of nursing.
Practitioner Practitioners are able to see the full entry from the Moss Herbalism Pregnancy Safety Database: trimester ratings, uterine and placental action, breastfeeding and nursing-baby effects, chemistry, traditional use, studies, and sources.
Folklore
Gin takes its name from the Dutch jenever, juniper, the berry that flavors it. In the Scottish Highlands, households burned juniper at the New Year to cleanse the house, a custom called saining, and juniper smoke was burned against plague in medieval sickrooms. Because the berries take two or three years to ripen, a single bush carries green and blue berries at the same time.
How to grow
A tough, slow-growing shrub for full sun and poor, dry, rocky or sandy soil. Plants are male or female, and only females bear berries. Pick fully blue, ripe berries in autumn.
In the wild
Rocky hills, heaths, open woods, and mountain slopes across the Northern Hemisphere; common juniper has the widest range of any conifer on Earth.
Every herb here fits some people better than others. Find out which ones fit you.
