OK. When searching the net for "is juniper tea safe to consume," I got some info that I'll summarize. Y'all probably know this, but since I obviously did not, Ill post it up.
True cedars are not going to be an issue for most of us building bows in the US. The ERC is a juniper. The Rocky Mtn Juniper is a Juniper. The berries are actually seed cones that resemble berries. (not sure about that, but that's what this site said) So, I'm going to assume that the ERC, even though it is a juniper, is weaker in tension than the rocky mountain juniper since all the info read in books and online says that the ERC is weaker in tension than juniper...when I read that ERC or Cedar is weaker bla bla bla than juniper in multiple places, it leads me to believe that there truly is a difference despite them both being junipers and most people are simply not using correct terminology. An ERC juniper is more of a tree from the get go and an untrained ERC will stand tall like a column...or a tree. The rocky mtn juniper is more of a bush/shrub that certainly can grow into what most folks would call a tree, but when young and untrained, it will be more bush or shrub like and won't grow tall and columnar-like as the ERC juniper will. This pretty much fits with what I have noticed in the east and here in Wyoming. Cedars I know of and can remember in SC and Ohio range from little trees to big trees and bucks love to rub them. Fifteen to twenty foot tall ERCs growing in the east tend to be taller than wide and a deer can get to their trunks no problem and rub the snot out of them. The Junipers I encounter in the wild in Wyoming range from little fat bushes to 25 foot tall trees, but the big trees have multiple branches and trunks, and if a deer wanted to rub the trunks, they would have to make their way through a tangle of limbs or rip them off to even get to the trunk. There are plenty of juniper trees in and around town that look like tall, columnar trees resembling ERC trees in the east, but they are in yards and have obviously been pruned and trained to be the way they are. If left alone to grow on its own, they are very shrubby when young. This all seems to fit with what I just read about the differences between ERC juniper and rocky mtn juniper. With that info combined with what has been said in this thread, I'm going to just assume that while one may be better than the other to carve a bow from, the difference isn't so much that it would stop me from using any type of juniper I could cut that looks like it would make a good bow. In the same vein, I'm still pretty sure that I'll never take a chance on making an unbacked bow from any juniper species I run across.
