Schefflera pueckleri - Mallet Flower

The Schefflera tree, known by many as Tupidanthus calyptratus is a tropical house plant that manages to grow nicely in some of our more mild areas. Grows 15-20' or larger depending on where you live, or it lives. Generally pretty narrow in cultivation. More than likely planted out front when it was too large for the living room or someone was moving out and could not take it with them.

Leaves are alternate, palmately compound, 7-9 leaflets, each leaflet 6-8" long, elliptical, to obovate, or oblong-lanceolate, margins undulated. Leaves bright green. Leaf base usually swollen and wrapping around the stem part way.

Fruit are pretty odd, really, looking sort of like little animal faces with smiles. Seems there are two fused together on a green stalk.

Flower buds in August, they are stalked and resemble a mallet, hence the common name.

Misidentification
Schefflera actinophylla I guess, but this is more coarse in texture, and the flowers are very different.

Location:
Santa Cruz
505 Lembrandt Ave

Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'

Not really a tree, anymore than other woody monocots, but they are still worth discussing. Often called the Red Albyssinian or the red banana its popular because of its reddish coloration that ranges from dark maroon to green with tinges of red. Grows locally to 8-10' tall. Creates a great tropical effect in the garden. Reasonably hardy and available.

Leaves are paddle-shaped, 8-10' long, with penni-parallel venation, petioles are red as is the midrib and usually the leaf margin. Underside is usually much more red. Petiole base is clasping around the stem. Leaves are a major source of starches and along with the stems are ground up and used as food source in Ethiopia.

Flowers after many years. Reportedly flowers then dies. Seems right, the one in the picture with the fruit cluster was gone the following year. Said to take 4-7 years to flower, and unlike true bananas, they rarely set offshoots.

"Trunk" is not really a trunk but appears to be one. Remnants of leaf base covers the stem making what they call a pseudostem.


Misidentification:
Not sure

Location:
Aptos
514 Humes Ave, two actually, a small one in the driveway and a larger on in the front courtyard.
Across the street is the species, not the red cultivar.

Ensete ventricosum - Ethiopian banana

Great tropical looking banana from Ethiopia, the Ethiopian banana is seen frequently but less so than its red foliaged cultivar, 'Maursii'. I like this one with its distinct red midrib and its commonly wind damaged leaves. Best for tropical landscapes, growing with some protection to 20'.

Leaves are paddle-shaped, really narrowly elliptical, 8-10' long, with penni-parallel venation, petioles are red as is the midrib and usually the leaf margin. Petiole base is clasping around the stem. Leaves are a major source of starches and along with the stems are ground up and used as food source in Ethiopia.

You can see the way the leaves tear along the perpendicular vein lines.

You can see the old leaf bases still attached, and showing the vascular traces in parallel groups rather than bunches like a dicot.

Misidentification:
Bananas likely but bananas have more oval stems.

Location:
Aptos
515 Humes Ave

Santa Cruz
203 Blackburn St.

Strelitzia nicolai - White Bird of Paradise

The White Bird of Paradise is usually planted to create a tropical feel in the garden with it's large banana like leaves. They are upright growing monocots on "woody" stems with the foliage clustered at the tips. Plants sucker at the base and can spread as wide as they grow tall.

Leaves are evergreen, banana-like, 5-8' long, about 12-16" wide, grayish green. Leaves get shredded along those veins running from the central to the margins. I like the edges of the petioles.

We often think of monocots having parallel venation, and they do, but they also have leaves like these where the veins seem to be in a pinnate venation pattern like a dicot. Well, they are. Kew Gardens says they are "pinnate with parallel-arching", while others call this penni-parallel venation.

Stems are eventually exposed when the older leaves fall off.

Flowers are strange indeed. They are cluster in a very complex inflorescence with a bluish boat shaped bract from which the individual flowers arise. Each flower has three free white steals and two fused petals and a purplish bit enclosing all the reproductive parts.

It took me years to "see" the bird in these flowers, not sure why but one day it just jumped out at me.

Misidentification:
I have read they are somewhat triangular resembling the Traveller's Tree, Ravenala, I wish, wow, what a plant that is.

Bananas?

Location:
Aptos
537 Humes Ave

Santa Cruz
302 Oceanview Ave
603 Washington St.

Bauhinia × blakeana - Hong Kong Orchid Tree

I first encountered this specimen while investigating Oceanview Ave. on a tip from a student about the huge trees. I was in Oceanview park and came out to find this poor little tree with only a few leaves, looking like it might be dead soon. Put in my notes that is was there but didn't think much about it. I went back in late November only to find it in bloom and doing quite well. I doubt it will reach its full potential here, it's reportedly damaged with temperatures of 20F. Trees reportedly semi-deciduous or completely deciduous, 15-20' tall and usually wider that tall, dome shaped. Looks a bit coarse with its long branches going in all directions.

Leaves are semi-deciduous or deciduous, alternate, simple, and more or less round in outline. The tip of the leaf is deeply lobed at least 1/3 of the way to the base. All the veins originate at the base of the leaf and radiate outward. Generally bluish green in color and often folded up like a clam closing or a butterfly.

Fragrant flowers appearing in fall into the winter and blooming until spring. Magenta color, five petals and sepals, 5+ inches wide, asymmetrical, long stamens with curving tip and female part even longer and more curved.

Stems some what zig-zagging at the nodes, smooth and green or brown in the fall, but new strong growth may have copper colored hairs. Vegetative buds look naked but I have not seen references to that.

Misidentification:
I have read references suggesting the leaves can look like Cercis canadensis but deeply lobed at the tip. I think the give away that its not a Cercis is the leaves folded up and deeply lobed. Now the trouble begins, as there are more than on species of Bauhinia, B. variegata has smaller leaves, less shallowly lobed to almost not lobed, smaller flowers, but same color flower or very pale to almost white. The pictures I have seen of B. variegata in full bloom the flowers all look very light colored, almost white.

I am open to being schooled on this plant. Doubt the owner will read this and most don't know what is planted in their yards.

Location:
Santa Cruz
113 Oceanview Ave.

Radermachera sinica - China Doll

I recall seeing these trees when I first started riding the neighborhoods and thinking, yikes, I know that plant, its a house plant. Not sure anyone really plants one from a nursery, just like some of the Norfolk Island Pines, they just got too big for a pot and the room they were in. Here's one in front of an apartment that someone must have planted years ago, my guess is the renter needed to move and had no way of taking it with them. Seems very happy to be in the ground, and was not part of the original design.

China doll can reach 100' in their native habitat, but likely topping out at about 30' around here. Definitely a tropical and exotic looking tree. Upright to spreading habit with multiple primary leaders. Blooms late summer.

Leaves are evergreen, opposite, bipinnately compound, 20-30" long, with glossy dark green 2" long narrowly ovate leaflets with an accuminate tip and a long petiole.

Flowers are fragrant, large 3", white trumpet shaped flowers with a yellow throat, looking like white hankies extending above the foliage. They are related to Catalpa.

Fruit is a long narrow capsule that curves. Splits when mature, revealing a thin membrane separating the two halves of the fruit.

Young stems are thick, brown with large white lenticels and big leaf scars.

Older stems keep the scars.

Misidentification:
Leaves might look like Koelreuteria bipinnata?

Location:
Aptos
1800-1827 Sumner Ave

Santa Cruz
2266 Chanticleer -- Really nice specimens, and always blooms.
1480 Creekview Ln.

Manihot grahamii - Hardy Tapioca

Hardy Tapioca, or Cassava, is a hardy tropical plant added to landscapes for a cool tropical look. Reportedly dying to the ground in cold winters, sprouting up to a large shrub, flowering and fruiting in one season. In warmer climates it dies back to woody parts. Eventually growing with an upright to spreading habit. Reportedly a very fast grower, prolific seed producer and weedy in tropical areas. Potential of reaching 15 or 20' tall in a matter of a few years. That will be interesting to see as one was just planted down the street from me.

Leaves are deciduous, alternate,  palmately compound, almost round in outline, 8-10" across. The leaflets can be almost lanceolate or shaped like these, which I have no idea how to describe but some mention Snowflake like. Leaves have red petioles and the centers of the leaf is pretty cool looking. Most references say 11 leaflets, but plants don't read books. This is a great looking leaf, though the one above was not anywhere near as snowflake like.

Flowers are quite interesting. The whole inflorescence appears reddish brown from a distance. I thought I had missed the flowers when I was approaching.

Turns out the stalks are reddish brown. Individual flowers are yellowish red, bell shaped with flared petals(?).

Thanks to Luen Miller for help identifying this specimen.

Misidentification:
Pretty hard to miss the leaves if you can get close enough to them.

Location:
Aptos
420 Clubhouse Dr. Brand new as of 11/14 (moved with the original owner)

Santa Cruz
212 Pennsylvania St

Cussonia paniculata sinuata - Mountain Cabbage Tree

The Mountain Cabbage Tree is a slow growing small tree, much like a dracaena with a swollen trunk designed to hold water. South African native, tolerant to about 20*F. Ours (DEAD) in the garden showed some cold damage at 22, losing some of the newer foliage.

Leaves are clustered at the tip of the plant.

Evergreen leaves are palmately compound, 2-3' long, mostly petiole, with 10 or so bluish green, deeply dissected or lobed leaflets.

Flowers after many years, yellow tiny flowers on a  woody stalk.

Fruit

Trunks are deeply furrowed, usually single when young but later may be branched after initially flowering.

Misidentification:

Can't think of anything

Location:

Aptos

Cabrillo College Horticulture Gardens (Dead)

Rio Del Mar Flats

216 Venetian

458 Seaview Dr. Might still be okay, they were not looking to good.

Santa Cruz
1310 Laurel Dr.