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Archa is a tree that has become a symbol of longevity and resilience. In the mountainous and plain regions of Central Asia, about ten species of tree flora are known, which successfully compete with each other in growth, trunk thickness, crown volume, root system power and age. These include plane tree, tal, mulberry and others. But perhaps the most interesting tree-like giant is the Central Asian juniper, or, as we call it, juniper.

Relic of the past

This coniferous tree, reaching 10 - 20 meters in height, is something between an ordinary tree and a shrub. The word "archa" is of Persian origin, meaning "growing near the sky." Indeed, this very unpretentious drought-resistant plant is not afraid of stony and the roughest soils. It is found on rocks, in cracks in boulders and in mountains rising up to 3500 - 3700 meters above sea level. For example, in the Fann Mountains, we met individual specimens of juniper, whose age is estimated at 400 - 500 years. Moreover, they are adjacent to the glacier, the "tongue" of which is lowered to an absolute mark of 3700 meters.

The Sogdian name for this juniper is "bursa", which means "tower" or "tower-like". The most common Turkestan juniper in the mountains usually has a cypress-shaped crown at a young age.

Thousands of years ago, juniper forests, numbering more than 70 species in their composition, covered not only medium-altitude mountains, as they do now, but also grew at lower levels, and even advanced to adyrs and foothill plains - the current bare steppes. In essence, this juniper is a relic of past climatic epochs that has successfully survived almost a million years of the most severe Quaternary glaciations and coolings and the global changes associated with them. For centuries, juniper has been mercilessly cut down for construction purposes, for firewood and charcoal burning, and therefore gradually “receded” into rocky mountains and gorges, into hard-to-reach places.

Only single specimens are now preserved below the middle mountains. One such tree is known in the village of Tym, Samarkand region. It is said to be over 1000 years old. It grows at an absolute height of 650 meters - almost 1000 meters below the modern lower limit of the distribution of juniper in the mountains.

A picturesque juniper grove of 200 trees over 600 years old has been preserved in the Mazar-i-Sherif tract at an absolute height of 1200 m. And nearby rise bald mountains. Here, 150 - 200 meters lower in relief, there are two more powerful thousand-year-old trees.

In the treeless and dry mountains of Aktou (Nuratau), in the most inaccessible Dara canyon, a unique grove of 400 trees was found growing at altitudes from 1300 to 1700 meters.

There are these trees and below - there are many examples of this. But even so, it is already quite clear that their disappearance in the low mountains and foothills lies entirely on the conscience of people.

Chronicle of climate

Juniper is a unique brainchild of nature. Individual trees can live and bear fruit for 1.5 - 2 thousand years. That is why the interest of scientists to them is great. These centenarians are the most reliable witnesses of secular fluctuations in climate and changes in the biosphere as a whole.

Having a cut of the trunk in hand, it is possible to describe with a certain accuracy the physical and geographical conditions of past eras by location, density, color, thickness, texture and other signs of annual (seasonal) rings. This method was developed by the great Leonardo da Vinci, then refined by D. I. Mendeleev. It was widely used after numerous experiments by the famous scientist, geographer and traveler P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky. Having visited at the end of the 19th century on the Zeravshan ridge (Vashan tract, where the purest juniper forests are preserved), he recommended to determine the climate of the past by a dendrogram using a cut of a separate tree, having at the same time a sufficient number of adequate examples for the area.

An 800-year-old tree in the same Washan "told" that in 1184 the winter in these places turned out to be severe and the summer cool. The same thing happened again in 1686 and 1850. Moreover, the last two dates coincided with the readings of dendrograms in the Alps and the USA. Another archa "confirmed" the testimony of the "neighbor". With an age of 1100 years, she added to the overall picture of climate fluctuations. IX-XIII centuries were mostly dry and warm, and in the XIV-XV years they were marked by a decrease in temperature and an increase in air humidity. By the way, the Spanish ambassador Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, who visited Timur in 1405, writes about severe frosts and snowfalls in Samarkand.

The deterioration of climatic conditions was observed until 1850. Scientists call this long cold period the "Little Ice Age". On the dendrograms of both trees after 1850, the annual rings are even and of the same structure, which once again indicates the correctness of the method and the stabilization of the climate in the last 100 years.

astronomical clock

Another interesting fact is that archa is able to sensitively respond to ... space disasters.

Glaciologist E. Maksimov found a dry tree trunk in the mountains at an altitude of 3500 meters, the age of which turned out to be 806 years. When studying the dendrogram, specialists revealed that juniper survived three supernova explosions: Tycho Brahe in 1572, Kepler in 1604 and Cassiopeia-A in 1700. After each cosmic catastrophe, the tree sharply slowed down its growth by exactly 15 years.

pantry mountains

In our mountains, three types of juniper are found everywhere - Turkestan, Zarafshan and hemispherical. But only in one place on the territory of the Pamir-Altai, these three species grow together - in the Zaaminsky mountain forest reserve, which is located on the northern slopes of the Turkestan Range.

The types of juniper differ in external signs - the shape of the crown, the color of the bark of the trunk, as well as the quality of the wood. In one case, it is small-layered, in the other - large-layered, and, finally, in the third - soft, easily processed. There are other differences as well.

For example, hemispherical juniper is decorative, grows very quickly, has a kind of airy crown and, in essence, is an adornment of any mountain slope. Usually it is a small tree 8-10 meters high. But there are giants up to fifteen meters, with a trunk diameter of up to two meters. Such giants, as a rule, have exceeded 1000 years.

Zarafshan archa is also not high and reaches a height of no more than 10 meters, with a rounded crown. It grows extremely slowly - no more than 2 - 3 cm per year. Settles on rocks, very drought-resistant. The wood of the Zarafshan juniper is straight-layered, well cut and polished, resistant to decay. From its trunks, bridges are usually erected on mountain rivers, which hold for more than a dozen years.

Turkestan juniper is the highest - reaches 15 meters or more. Moreover, the trees growing below are real giants. Their wood is hard with a beautiful brown-red pattern on the cut, reminiscent of onyx painting. This type of juniper is used as a scarce timber, as well as for various crafts up to carved columns.

Cone-berries of the Turkestan juniper contain a large amount of sugar and are quite edible. Shepherds used them to make up for the lack of vitamins and sugar. Fresh branches of needles contain essential oils with medicinal properties.

Juniper forest is a conventional name. As a rule, these are rare stands where one tree stands 10 or more meters from another. Only in the upper reaches of Guralashsay there is a real juniper forest, through which it is difficult to get through. Here we repeatedly met with bears and pale lynx: in this dense tract, a person does not bother rare animals.

Even a small discharged juniper produces a huge amount of phytoncides useful for health, has important sanitary-hygienic and therapeutic and prophylactic significance. And the juniper leaf itself is a unique device that receives carbon dioxide from the air, turning it into phytoncides.

man in the forest

In mountainous areas and adjacent flat spaces, juniper is practically the only building material. Its wood is valued 2-5 times more expensive than poplar, elm, tal. For construction purposes, straight-stemmed trees were chosen. Axes clatter in the juniper forest. Every day on any mountain path you can meet a caravan of pack animals loaded with logs and firewood.

It takes at least 100 logs to build a new house. Even a small village, consisting of 50 houses, absorbs up to 500 trees from time to time. And if we take into account that the self-renewal of the juniper is practically absent, then from year to year the mountain slopes are exposed, threatening with landslides and mudflows, drying up the climate, reducing the flow of water in sources, etc. It turns out that over time, the juniper may disappear altogether.

An interesting fact was once reported by the forest department of the Turkestan region. To smelt one pood of cast iron, two poods of charcoal are needed. And in order to extract coal, two full-fledged trees were burned. From the "dead" trees, fuel did not work. “The purveyors make coal in the most primitive way, burning a standing tree on the vine, which results in a small yield of coal, a slight ignition of the forest,” the report from 1908 states further.

Although, back in 1879, by a special decree of the governor of the Turkestan region, forestry was prohibited, but felling continued at an unrelenting pace. Local residents were fined and punished, but the matter ended with the so-called "kishlak riots", during which foresters and rangers were beaten. The highlanders protested against the established order. They could be understood. By prohibiting logging for construction and firewood, the administration of the region did not meet the needs of the population in cheap Siberian timber. Therefore, juniper gradually disappeared from the mountain slopes.

Today, this picture has changed dramatically for the better. The complete ban on juniper logging affected self-seeding. Young trees appear in the mountains. A lot of work on the selection of juniper is carried out by the foresters of the experimental station of the Zaamin Reserve. The task of growing juniper seedlings in the nursery turned out to be difficult. This juniper grows extremely slowly: in the first ten years it reaches a height of ... 10 cm. This is still a child, subject to various diseases and hardships. But many years of searching, in the end, were crowned with success. Dozens of mountain slopes of the Malguzar Range are now afforested. The attack on the "bare landscape" continues. Years will pass, and the forest created by man will rustle.

When you see juniper in the mountains, do not harm it. Remember that she did not survive the Quaternary glaciation in order to burn in your fire.

Juniper or juniper (Juniperus)

High in the mountains to the border of eternal snows, in the regions of eternal cold and wind, Turkestan juniper climbs - the highest mountain tree in Uzbekistan (J. turkestanica). He conquers heights from 2000 to 3000 meters above sea level. Two other species of our junipers are not far behind - Zeravshan (J. zeravschanica), growing at altitudes of 1000-2500 m and hemispherical (J. semiglobosa) growing in the mountain belt of 1500-2700 m.

Juniper forests on the slopes of the Turkestan Range. Supa Plateau.

Juniper or juniper forms forests that give a unique charm to the Central Asian mountains. As in the more northern regions, the Tien Shan spruce is an integral part of the mountain landscape, so in the western part of the Tien Shan and in the Gissar, juniper forests stretch towards the snow.

Separate junipers are especially picturesque. Chatkal ridge. The tract Beldersay.

Juniper wood has long been used by the inhabitants of Central Asia as a building material in the construction of high-mountain huts and houses, when laying roads and building bridges in hard-to-reach mountainous areas, as a fuel that allowed them to keep warm and survive at the eternally cold heights. The high calorific value of burning juniper wood and, to a greater extent, the ability to use juniper charcoal in metallurgy and ceramic production, have caused the methodical cutting of these slow-growing trees since the early Middle Ages. According to archeology, once the Chatkal foothills were completely covered with juniper forests from a height of 1000 m above sea level. Now occasionally occurring dark spots of junipers and separately growing trees remind us of the past splendor of our nature.

Sawing up a branch of juniper on a tape machine. Unfortunately, the computer cannot convey the characteristic aroma that accompanies the processing of juniper.

Unprocessed fragments of juniper wood on a cut and processed wood - a carved tea spoon soaked in edible mineral oil (author's product).

Juniper wood is relatively soft, although its hardness is sufficient for wood carving, for the manufacture of household items, utensils, for lumber. Even 30-40 years ago, pencils were made from juniper wood.
The wood of juniper, like other representatives of the juniper genus, has a peculiar pleasant smell. This aroma is called in botany "cypress". Even when processing dry boughs of juniper, exposed to harsh weather conditions for many years, an indescribable “cypress” aroma is felt. To one degree or another, the wood of all types of junipers smells, which is why it is used in the manufacture of odorous mixtures from sawdust and shavings, in the production of all kinds of kitchen utensils, which exude aroma when heated. Especially popular are coasters for hot dishes made from juniper cross cuts.

"Smelling" under hot juniper.

The felling of juniper in Uzbekistan was completely prohibited back in 1959, but it is always possible to get material suitable for handicrafts in the places of its growth. These are dead branches and roots, and even entire trees that died for natural reasons.
The wood of juniper is dense and uniform. Although it is much softer than the so-called "hard" wood, for example, walnut, apple, hawthorn, sycamore, it is still strong enough for the manufacture of certain types of products. Traditionally, juniper is used for carving - the strength and uniformity of wood allows you to cut thin carved details. In the growing regions of juniper, mainly European and North American, it is widely used in folk crafts in the manufacture of decorative dishes, spoons, jewelry, and souvenirs.

Dead wood is a natural pantry of juniper wood.

Archa with straight branches is rare. Branch bends give a whimsical wood pattern, but at the same time contribute to scuffing when planing due to a change in the direction of the fibers. When fine grinding juniper, abrasive materials are quickly clogged with a mixture of resin and sawdust and therefore more sandpaper is consumed than when processing non-resinous wood.
The color of the wood of old trunks and branches is light red-brown with beautiful patterns near the bends and knots. Young branches have a pronounced pink-red core and a light, almost white sapwood, softer in hardness. The wood of strongly curved and knotty branches, as well as basal branches and juniper roots, is especially expressive in its pattern.

The surface of a dried juniper trunk. This texture appeared over the long years of exposure to the harsh high-mountain climate.

The hardness of juniper depends on the place of growth of the tree and the fragment of wood. According to my observations, trees with straight trunks grown in dense forest have softer wood than their counterparts growing separately at high altitudes and exposed to harsh natural influences. Root wood has the highest strength. It often differs in pattern and color from the stem material.

Mulberry (Morus) or tut, mulberry tree

The word “mulberry”, familiar to our ears, evokes associations with sugary-sweet fruits in early June that fall asleep on the sidewalks of Tashkent. White, and sometimes black, mulberries cover poorly parked cars with sticky spots, stain shoes, and create a problem for public utilities. Despite this, sweet mulberry fruits are a favorite delicacy of Central Asian children. Few people know that mulberry wood has an unusual yellow color with a golden hue and tints. Unfortunately, after sawing, it gradually darkens under the influence of light, becoming dark yellow, but still remains very noticeable in the details of the mosaic and in small handicrafts. On large surfaces, the texture of mulberry resembles oak, differing only in a thick yellow color.
Mulberry wood is strong and fairly hard. In its structure, dense layers alternate with relatively loose and porous ones. The width of the layers apparently depends on the humidity of the growth seasons.

Cut mulberry wood. After sawing, more than 3 years have passed and the wood has acquired a stable dark color.

In the vicinity of many settlements in Uzbekistan, thick squat mulberry trunks with chopped branches, slender lines standing along roadsides in irrigated areas, are often found. This is a sure sign that somewhere in the vicinity the silkworm is bred and fed to it with young shoots. In such places, mulberry plays a dual role - an ornamental and fodder tree. And if we add more valuable wood and sweet fruits, then the mulberry tree can be considered one of the most used in Central Asia.

Mulberry in the product. Jewelry Set .

Maple (Acer)

Maple wood is one of the most "musical" - it is from maple that the body elements of bowed instruments, such as violins, violas, cellos, are made. And high-quality furniture, especially wear-resistant worktops, kitchen utensils, hard-wearing parquet, as well as curved shapes, such as skis.
Several types of wild maple grow in our republic. The most common in the Tien Shan mountains are the Turkestan maple (A. turkestanicum) and the Semenov maple (A. semenovii). In some places, these trees form the basis of forest thickets. A number of maple species are grown in Uzbekistan for decorative and landscaping purposes.

Semenov maple wood on a cut

Jewelry Set .

Maple wood is strong, bends well, and is easily cut along the grain. Due to its distinct fibrous nature, it is prone to tearing when sawing and carving and is difficult to polish.
Usually maple wood is light, almost white. Moreover, the young wood is lighter, with a slight yellowish tint, it is more yellow towards the outer layers. Older branches and trees darken. In old trunks, wood is found that is completely covered with gray and almost black stripes, creating a very decorative look. Sometimes the core is painted in dark gray tones even in young branches.

from maple.

There are few botanical species with light wood and good strength qualities in nature, and therefore maple, widespread in temperate climates, is an excellent material for cabinetmakers. From it you can make both individual expressive elements and finished products.

Barberry (Berberis)

It is difficult not to recognize this wood in products - freshly sawn lemon-yellow barberry. Unfortunately, the natural color of the wood is not stable and under the influence of bright light after a few months it begins to fade, becoming yellowish-brown. If barberry products are stored in the dark, then the color degradation will last for years, but still, sooner or later, the color saturation will decrease.

Barberry wood on a cut after a year of storage in the dark.

In our mountains, wild barberry is not uncommon and is usually found in shrub thickets mixed with juniper, hawthorn, wild rose and honeysuckle. Sometimes it can also be found in cities in the form of hedges or ornamental shrubs. Barberry cultivars are especially beautiful, covered with yellow flowers in spring, dark red foliage in summer, and covered with red-violet fruits in autumn.

Blooming barberry

barberry fruits

Barberry is a relatively small shrub and therefore it is problematic to find thick trunks and branches. But since contrasting elements of products and mosaics are usually made from barberry, branches a few centimeters thick are quite enough to realize the author's intention.
Barberry wood is very durable, hard and uniform. Wood reference books provide information on how to make wooden nails from wood that are very durable and resistant to decay. In addition to wood, barberry bark used to be used, with the help of which fabrics were dyed yellow.

Fragments of barberry wood. Shown in the center (from top to bottom) are four planks taken from the same branch, stored for a year under varying light conditions. The top two boards were stored in almost complete darkness and the color saturation remained practically unchanged. Below - the tablet was stored in daylight, but without direct sunlight. Even lower (the smallest fragment) - the tablet lay inside the room on a brightly lit windowsill with occasional direct sunlight; color saturation has changed radically.

Contrasting insert in barberry wood.

Archa in the Taurus Mountains (Turkey). Photo by I. Zhdanov

Undoubtedly, mountain junipers are landscape-forming plants in numerous mountain systems of the northern hemisphere. The image of Archie is inextricably linked with impressions of travels in the Tien Shan, Asia Minor.

There are juniper giants, sometimes reaching 25 and even 30 meters. The maximum diameter of such trees is sometimes more than 3 meters, and the age can reach from 2000 to (according to the representatives of the Ecotourism of Pakistan) 5000 years!!! One of the trees in Turkey (Juniperus foetidissima Willd.) has a diameter of 2.2 m and reaches a height of 12 m. Its age is about 700 years.

Tall trees grow in the mountains at a relatively low altitude, at high altitude they transform into dwarf forms (this refers to the species Juniperus turkestanica Kom. in Central Asia). In the mountains of northern Kyrgyzstan, all plants have such creeping crown forms, only of a different species - Juniperus sibirica Burgd.

The trunks of many species are strongly swollen near the butt and sharply thinner towards the top, although along with this there are even, slender trunks, almost like those of pines. The bark of juniper often exfoliates itself and is easily torn off in whole strips. The thin twigs of most mountain junipers are covered with scaly leaves. But in their youth, they are always needle-like, and therefore it is generally accepted that the ancestors of all junipers had thorny foliage. The fact is that in biology there is a law (the Muller-Haeckel biogenetic law), according to which young organisms usually go through stages of development that correspond in structure to the early stages of the evolution of a particular group of organisms.

The variety of junipers is truly limitless... They have a fantastic crown shape. Some are like majestic, slender cypresses, or spherical, others resemble shaggy, disheveled and clumsy witches.

Junipers have separate male and female specimens (botanists say they are dioecious). There are also hermaphrodites, with "flowers" of both types. Male trees bear "flowers" similar to real cones, but very small. Women's "flowers" resemble small, graceful stars, green on the outside and reddish inside. Each of them contains from 1 to 12 future seeds.

Juniper seeds are hidden in fleshy berries. In this case, it is better to use the name "coneberry", for we must remember that junipers do not have true berries in the botanical sense. As coniferous plants they carry "cones". On the same tree, cone berries usually have different colors: green with a grayish coating, purple, dark blue and shiny black. So the tree, covered with a large number of colorful berries, resembles a cheerful Christmas tree. These original cone berries ripen within two years, which is the reason for their noted differences.

A rare species of juniper is incense juniper (Juniperus thurifera L.). Found in France and Spain. French botanists have established that the species in question really exists in their country (!) only in the previous century. It was called "botanical riddle". For many reasons, this species is a real "botanical rarity". The sympathy of botanists for this plant is so great that they organized two special seminars dedicated to it.

The genus Juniperus includes approximately 50-70 species (30 in North America and 15 in the former USSR). Only approximate data on the number of species can be given, because the taxonomy of this genus is very confused. At first glance, this seems strange, but errors in classification are partly due to wars. The English army was moving across India and along with it were researchers who tried to describe species new to science (and, of course, new plants). The Russian army captured Turkestan, as in the first case, behind it were detachments of Russian scientists, who (in turn) again described new species. There is no doubt that some of them (the same!) were described twice and even more times. Thus, numerous synonyms were created that litter the scientific literature.

Juniper forests in general have an interesting feature: they do not grow in the Southern Hemisphere (with the exception of part of East Africa) and surround the globe like a wide ring. It coincides with many mountain systems. As we mentioned, junipers can be found not only in the mountains, but also on the plains. For example, in the USA, in South Carolina, a species of Juniperus salicicola or "pencil cedar" (once used to make pencils) grows along the roads. There are a number of other species that grow in the mountains of America. It is curious that the most common tree of the plain regions of Europe - Juniperus uniperus communis, which we also mentioned, is also found in the mountains of the Western Hemisphere, on the North African coast of the Mediterranean Sea and on the slopes of the modest mountains of the Scandinavian countries.

The home of juniper is mountains with a height of 300 m to 4000 m. This is a genus of woody plants with the widest vertical boundaries of distribution. Where juniper grows, other tree species are usually not found. However, mixed forests of juniper and oak, juniper and birch, juniper and spruce, etc. are known.

In general, juniper is one of the most unpretentious plants. These trees are typical (that is, drought-resistant plants) - often settling on bare, impregnable rocks and can spend their lives open to all the most ferocious winds and the merciless sun. Trees are known that live so high in the mountains that precipitation falls there only in the form of snow. For them, life is not life, but torment - clinging to the rocks, they grow extremely slowly, but they have been serving for centuries. Their longest (30 m or more) roots, even after death, for a long time, like hoops, compress collapsing rocks, preventing rockfalls.

Every tourist should know that juniper smoke is an excellent cure for the common cold. For treatment, it is enough to pick ribbons of bark and place them in a clean tin can, with holes punched in the lid. Place it on the fire and breathe in the wonderful bluish smoke several times a day. The next morning you will be well.

Finally, lovers of strong drinks make your own flavored gin easily . To do this, it is enough to place the cones cut in half in ordinary vodka or whiskey. It should only be remembered that for this purpose Juniper cones of the Juniperus sabina species are completely unsuitable. The sabinol they contain poisonous.

But the main value of juniper is determined by its role and importance in mountain ecosystems. This tree occupies a "leading position" in the mountains: it grows on watersheds - in the places where many rivers form in the most arid regions of the world.