Juniper tree ("Juniperus phoenicea") is applied in dotted patterns on bisque drinking cups. Gitran makes the water more fragrant and is said to be good for the teeth. Some Indigenous peoples, such as the Dineh, have traditionally used juniper for diabetes. Native Americans have also used juniper berries as a female contraceptive. The 17th Century herbalist physician Nicholas Culpeper recommended the ripened berries for conditions such as asthma and sciatica, as well as to speed childbirth. The plant was long used as an arbortifacient and was known as 'bastard killer' in the UK. Juniper is one of the plants used in
Fire-vegetation feedbacks and alternative stable states a sclerophyll shrub land is considered a destabilizing transition, as it causes the fire dependent sclerophyll shrub land to switch to a mixed conifer forest. The establishment of a conifer plantation creates an alternative stable state that has higher pyrogencity than a mixed confer forest, creating the potential for more frequent and higher severity fire that can effect neighboring mixed conifer forests. The establishment of a conifer plantation in a previous sclerophyll shrub land or mixed conifer forest and the related effects of increased fire severity also create destabilizing transitions in this alternative stable states model. Recent studies of alternative