Melia azedarach - Chinaberry

The Chinaberry tree is a small to medium deciduous tree with an upright to spreading crown hitting 20 - 40'. Grown for its beautiful fruit and interesting flowers. Considered a weed in its native Australia, so be careful. Not commonly encountered here.

Leaves are deciduous, alternate, bipinnately compound, up to 20" long, glossy, leaflets 2" long, elliptical, serrated. Rachis and petiole green.

Flowers are purple, fragrant, in loose clusters about 1/2" to 1" wide. Borne in the spring.

Fruit is a yellow drupe ripening in the fall, maturing in late fall to winter. Poisonous to humans if eaten in quantity. Makes for a nice show, but more likely messy. Birds love them.

Stems are stout, reddish brown with lenticels, interesting leaf scars, and almost white buds, terminal bud lacking as seen below.

Bark is greenish brown, reminds me of Laburnum bark.

Misidentification:
Bipinnate leaves are not that common, especially with these fruit or blue flowers.

Location:
Watsonville
Sierra Azul Nursery display gardens.

Jacaranda mimosifolia - Jacaranda

One of the few blue flowered trees that you might encounter, the Jacaranda is a semi-deciduous tree forming a rounded or oval canopy growing quickly to about 30' tall. By semi-deciduous I mean it loses its leaves late in spring for a very short time before growing new foliage. This is a picture of one at Cal Poly SLO at the hort center. They really bloom better inland with heat but ours do okay.

This is on Oceanview in SC, not bad.

The leaves are alternate, bipinnately compound, about 12" long with 13-25 pairs of lateral compound leaflets. There are also about the same number of leaflets. Each leaflet is about 1/2" long. Albizia has similar leaves but shorter. 

Branching is layered with the ends of the branches arching up.

Flowers are blue, 1-2" long, tubular, in 6-12" long terminal clusters in June. Very attractive.

Fruit is pretty cool looking, sort of a flat round pod, about 1 1/2 - 2" in diameter, splitting open to release lots of tiny winged seeds.

Misidentification: Albizia julibrissin has leaves sort of like this, but the Albizia leaves are smaller, the tree is smaller with layered flatted branches and totally different flowers, other than that they look alike, sort of.

Location: 

Santa Cruz, 

Lincoln St at Washington is a nice one.

Oceanview 

Ceanothus 'Ray Hartman' - Ray Hartman Ceanothus

The Ray Hartman ceanothus (Wild Lilac is another common name for Ceanothus) is a beautiful small evergreen tree. Fast growing mounded large shrub or smaller tree to 20'. Drought tolerant, beautiful flowers, long lived, attracts butterflies, what else do you want? 

Leaves are evergreen, alternate, simple,  ovate to elliptical, lightly serrated and slightly revolute margins,  2-3" long, dark shiny green, with 3 deeply set veins starting at the base that curve towards the tip. Leaves feel rough to the touch. 

Young stems are green with shallow grooves. 

Flowers emerge late winter - early spring. Medium blue flowers on 6" long clusters, tiny individual flowers,  attracting lots of flying insects. Wow, really pretty plant in bloom.

Fruit is a small capsule.

The Ray Hartman Ceanothus a hybrid of 2 species of Ceanothus native to CA. C. arboreus and C. thrysiflorus griseus

Misidentification: Not sure, other Ceanothus perhaps?

Location: 

Aptos

Cabrillo Hort Center

Capitola

Corner of El Salto and Hollister (Depot Hill)

Santa Cruz