Juniperus pingii NAPE131

Cutting-grown from the single seed which germinated from our collection at 13000' in an open alpine meadow in eastern Bhutan. The meadow was dotted with these junipers which made upright shrubs like an elfin forest to 3'-6' tall. We pitched our tent near the woodland edge next to a grove of Rhododendron wallichii upon which we draped with wet clothes hoping they might dry enough to be less wet. With a bit of time on our hands, we wandered among the dozens of these intriguing conifers and found a single dwarfed plant that was a low congested mound with quite blue foliage. This is the plant we collected seed from and unfortunately the seedling is "normal" pingii. It is not all that unfortunate though as this is the true species and quite rare in cultivation according to conifer expert Tom Cox of the Cox Arboretum in Georgia who pretty tickled to see this when he visited. Apparently much of the J. pingii in the trade is something else entirely and to find the real thing is a good thing.