Casuarina equisetifolium - Casuarina

The Casuarina species all look the same to me, not up close but from the leaves, they look like horsetails, from the genus Equisetum. They have lots of common names, one is the horsetail tree, others include she-oak, ironwood, or beefwood. Regardless, this native of Australia has become naturalized and invasive in many parts of the county. 

They are fast growing evergreen trees to 40-50 feet and about 20 wide. The habit is somewhat pyramidal with weeping lateral branches. With leaves that look like pine needles it adds to the weeping look. 

The foliage resembles a pine or as I mentioned a horsetail. If you look at the stems closely you will see that they look jointed. The joints are where the leaves are. They are highly reduced to only little nubs, 6-8 or so at each joint. You can see the ends near the bottom right of the image where one of the branches was pulled off, just like a horsetail.

Flowers are interesting to look at and make it pretty obvious they are not conifers with long needles. They are said to be unisexual (dioecious) resulting in male and female trees. These are females, as the males are said to be at the tips of the branches.

Fruit is a cone like structure as well, again leading to the impression that these trees are conifers. They are really clusters of follicles like a magnolia aggregate fruit.

Trunk is gray brown, pretty smooth till older then small persistent scales.

Misidentification: not a conifer.

Locations:

Aptos: Several at Cabrillo College by the Sesnon house parking lot. 

Along Soquel Drive at Crawfords Antiques.

Pyrus kawakamii - Evergreen Pear

The Evergreen Pear is a semi-deciduous tree, more likely evergreen to some extent, growing moderately to 15-20' and about the same width. It can have multiple trunks and have more of a shrub like appearance. It generally forms a broad spreading dome shaped canopy. Generally thin in appearance, because the leaves are killed by a fungus.

Leaves are alternate, simple, bright glossy light green 2-3" long, obovate to broadly elliptical with undulated and serrulated margins. Petiole is reddish, and often grooved. The tree generally looks pretty bad as a foliage disease seen below causes the leaves to fall prematurely. Entomosporium is the fungus causing the spots, and Fire Blight is also a big problem.

Stems with sharply diverging buds.

Flower display can be very attractive, with white 1" flowers in clusters of 10-15 flowers very early in the spring. They really did not bloom well this year.

The tree does produce small little fruit resembling an Asian Pear.

Without a doubt, one of the best assets (only one maybe) of the tree is the bark and the branching pattern. The bark is rough, checked into small plates, dark brown with black.

Misidentification: If there are no leaves and its blooming it looks like other pears, except for the trunks. We used to use the foliage leaf spots as a way it identify the plant, pretty sad.

Locations:
Soquel : on Porter near the intersection of Porter and Soquel Drive

Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' - Royal Purple Smoke Tree

The purple smoke trees are small upright trees or multi-stemmed shrubs growing to about 8 - 15'. May be somewhat stiff if not pruned but generally pretty full. If pruned hard in spring the resulting growth will be very vigorous and very purple. It will not "smoke" however. Not a bad way to treat this plant if you really like large purple leaves.

The foliage is deep maroon in spring developing into a deep purple in summer. Leaves almost round in outline with petiole almost as long as the leaf blade. Often with a layer of wax on the surfaces of the leaves. 2-4" long, counting the petiole.

Fruit is a little cashew on the end of a thin stalk. Not very interesting. However the hairs that develop on the fruit stalks become very effective and give the plant it's common name of smoke tree.  When seen back lit they are very interesting. 

Flowers are very small, yellowish with some purple due to culivar. Flower stalks have hairs that grow after fertilization and which give the tree the smokey look.

Twigs are covered with a glaucous bloom. Looking purple with small white lenticles.

There are several other purple cultivars and a new yellow leaved one. This is a cultivar called 'Grace' and is actually a selection of the cross between the American smoke tree and the common smoke tree.

Misidentification: Not sure, look for the really long petioles, almost as long as the leaf blades. And of course the smoke in the fall.

Location: Lots,

Aesculus hippocastanum - Horse Chestnut

The horse chestnuts are a moderately fast growing deciduous tree to about 50' by about 40' wide. Often oval to oblong shaped or a broadly spreading habit, they create a very dense canopy and dense shade. Beautiful in bloom and usually great fall color. They also have great flowers early spring. This one is in Cambridge England. They are a pretty old-school tree and I don't see them around our area.

Leaves are opposite and palmately compound with 5 leaflets. The center leaflet is generally quite a bit larger than the others. Leaflets are 6-8" long by about 3" wide, obovate shaped with with a slightly drawn out tip and serrated margins. Veins uniformly spaced off the midrib and deeply set in the foliage. 

When just emerging from the buds, the young leaves (petioles and some of the undersides) have a rusty tomemtum near the leaf blade attachment.

Flowers are very attractive, in upright clusters 8-12" tall. Individuals are white with a blotch of yellow that turns red in the throat.

Fruit is an attractive green leathery husked capsule with sharp spines,  2 1/2" diameter releasing 1 or sometimes 2 brown shiny seeds.

Fall color can be spectacular. Often less that so here. Usually more yellow that orangish yellow in this picture. I am a bit surprised I don't have a better picture of this tree during the fall or in flower.

Stems are large and have distinct leaf scars. Buds are sticky. Leaf scars are large, and you can easily see the vascular traces forming a U.

Bark is grayish brown in small shallow irregular shaped scales when old, smooth and gray when young.

There is a double flowered form 'Baumannii'.

Misidentification: Other buckeyes, at least around here you will find A. x carnea more often than A. hippocastanum. A. carnea has dry buds, not sticky, red flowers, smaller leaves and shorter more rounded habit.

Location:
Aptos - Cabrillo College, by the Sesnon house down the side of the hill towards the creek. Only one I know of.

Edited 5/24

Pinus torryeana - Torrey Pine

The Torrey Pine is a large native evergreen conifer, growing slowly up to 60 tall and almost as wide. The trees have a nice broad conical habit with strong stout upright primary lateral branches. They have a distinctly  bluish cast to the canopy. The Torrey pine is extremely variable in its native habit. Being so close to the coast it might take on a "picturesque" habit.

This native conifer is also very restricted tree in the "wild" and only found natively growing in a very small area in San Diego County and a few islands off the coast. But like others trees from somewhere else, it grows and reseeds nicely here and grows fast in cultivation. There are lots of seedlings in and around Sea Cliff State Park. This image is at the park over looking the ocean.

The evergreen leaves are in 5's, gray-green color, 5-12" long, stout and prickly at the tips. Generally clustered at the tips of stout branches. Persisting 3-4 years.

Cones are oval, dark reddish brown, 4-5" long and almost as wide. They can be very heavy. Takes 3 years to mature. Scales are strongly 4 sided with a prominent recurving spine. Seeds are edible. Cone falls leaving some of the scales behind. This image shows young cones that will be developing later in the season.

These are recently maturing and have not turned brown yet.

Male cones are 1 - 2" long when open, yellow and in clusters at the tips of lower branches

Stout, rough twigs and often sort of a light gray color looking like they have a waxy coating on them.  Short but persistent leaf sheaths.

Bark is gray scaly ridges showing red-brown between the furrows.  It forms rectangular plates.

Misidentification: Count the needles, this is an "odd" 5 needle pine. Most have long skinny cones and soft leaves with non-persistent bundle sheaths. Most five needle pines have smooth bark as well, at least till they are very old.

Locations:
Aptos
Seacliff: At Seacliff State park upper parking lot overlooking the ocean
608 Seacliff Drive has a nice one. (GONE)

Capitola Area
Along Highway 1 in several places. Two on the N bound lanes heading North, just south of the Drive In/Flea market.

Santa Cruz
225 Marnell Ave - Awesome
Heading South from the River St intersection on the right just by the Ocean St exit.
head.
On the golf course in DeLeveaga

XCupressocyparis leylandii - Leyland Falsecypress

The Leyland cypress (falsecypress) is a very fast growing evergreen conifer to 50' by 15 - 20' wide,  often upright pyramidal to almost columnar. Primary lateral branches upright at about 45 degrees. Eventually becomes more open with age but is a tight screen when younger. Often pruned into a hedge. 

This is a pretty mature specimen showing the flattened branching habit typical of the hybrids.

Originally considered a hybrid between Cupressus macrocarpa and Chamaecyparis nootkatensis. The parents didn't change but their names, both of them, one several times. Now considered to be a hybrid of Cupressus as most taxonomists have put Chamaecyparis back into Cupressus as the foliage lasts 2 years instead of only 1. So it might be called Cupressus x lelayandii. Then again, with the discovery of a closely related new species in Vietnam Chamaecyparis nootkatensis was moved to Xanthocyparis. But then someone noticed that the genus Callitropsis was overlooked in preference of Xanthocyparis making Callitropsis the proper name. Many taxonomists don't agree with this classification and prefer to keep Chamaecyparis with Cupressus.

So where does that leave this poor lost plant? Who knows. Taxonomists are rearranging the other half of the cross, Cupressus into 2 genera, old and new world species. As I mentioned in the post of our Monterey Cypress, it's name has changed to Hesperocyperus. So, while the big dogs battle this one out I am sticking with X Cupressocypris leylandii. 

Leaves are evergreen, scale like, tips free, dark green or bluish green about 1/16" long, in flattened narrow sprays, lasting 2 years before turning brown. You can see the leaves below how the tips spread out.

Here you can see how the leaves and branchlets are arranged in flattened sprays

Small inconspicuous male and female stroboli.

Rounded cone, 3/4' diameter, shiny brown at maturity with 4 sets of scales, each with a slight point in the center, maturing in 2 years

Cultivars are numerous, I have seen many in England where they are really popular. Yellows and blues mostly.  I have a great picture on my old school slides showing 3 in a group at the Botanical Garden in Cambridge.

Not recommend much anymore due to a couple of fast acting diseases.  Botrysopheria canker that causes cankers and dieback and Seiridium canker which looks similar but is usually accompanied by large amount of pitch.  

Misidentification: Yes, very likely around here, they are commonly mistaken for Monterey Cypress. The cones are much larger on our native, and the leaves are not as distinctly pointed and the lateral branches come off  in all directions rather than this one being in a flattened spray.

Location: Capitola: as seen from the freeway at the Park Ave exit surrounding the Capitola Knolls Condos.
East Cliff Village Shopping Center, on the east end of the parking lot, near where Tremont Drive enters the shopping center.

Cordyline australis - Green Dracena

The Cabbage tree is a slow growing evergreen tree with sword shaped leaves and a swollen water retaining stem. Often branched low or not. Can reach 20 or more feet tall. Tropical looking tree. Now comes in lots of colors, a purple one is pretty common, but there are lots of tri-colored ones as well. Looks like a Yucca.

This one is single-stemmed and showing the swollen base.

Leaves are sword shaped, lanceolate, 18 - 36" long and about 1 - 2" wide. Sharply pointed, entire margins, slightly curled inward (concave shaped or boat like). 

Small white flowers in large panicles (2-3' long) in mid to late summer. Panicles may be upright or slightly pendulous.

Fruit is a small berry. These are dried up.

Stems are thick, succulent like, with leaf scars.


Trunk often with a wide base near the ground. Bark on older trees is gray brown and slightly checked.

Misidentification: Looks like a Yucca, such as Yucca aloifolia, the Spanish Bayonet, but the flowers are totally different as are the leaves, which are much wider and more distinctly boat shaped.

Location: Common,
Santa Cruz: Sunshine Villa on either Front St or 3rd. in the parking lot to the left of the facility more on 3rd.