Ginkgo biloba - Ginkgo Tree

Ginkgo biloba is a really beautiful and interesting tree with a long history. Often called a living fossil because it was growing before the dinosaurs. It is the only living relative from that period. Ginkgo's are not flowering plants but a gymnosperm, more closely related to pine trees than oaks. There is a Ginkgo Petrified Forest just out side of Vantage Washington. Trees are reported to live for 3500 years or so.

Ginkgos form large trees, growing to 100' but in cultivation and as a street tree may reach 50'. Cultivated varieties have pretty decent shapes, but the species can have main lateral branches going almost any direction, so the form is not very clear or formal, though they are upright for the most part. There were two trees on the WSU campus that were propagated from weak lateral branches and developed into a weak side lateral branch habit referred to a plagiotropism.

If you google Ginkgo biloba, you will see pages and pages of ginkgo extract used for medicinal purposes.

Two large trees at Wisley Garden.

Large tree in Chico CA. (Ouch, most likely destroyed in the fire that burned down the mansion.)

Leaves are deciduous, simple, with a distinct shape, alternate on elongating stems, appearing whorled on spurs. The leaf has two lobes, most of the time but can be seen looking somewhat like a whale's tail. Generally 2-4" long, with a dissection in the middle of the tip being deep or virtually non existent. Looking like a maidenhair fern leaf. I used to think the name biloba was because of the leaf, but its not, see below. I suspect that more people know a ginkgo leaf than any other leaf. I see all sorts of ginkgo leaf art.

More deeply lobed leaf.

Even more deeply lobed leaf of the cultivar 'Saratoga'.

The venation is key, its dichotomous, and the only plant I have heard of with such a pattern. It is like a bracket in a sporting event, maybe you have seen tennis tournament brackets, or the NCAA basketball brackets but not squared off, like a Y in a road. Essentially the veins branch into two equal veins, these branch the same and it goes on and on, so the leaf starts off thin, and gets wider like a fan.

Wonderful fall color, bright yellow, and in cold climates they seem to all fall at the same time.

Plants are dioecious, male and female and you want the males. Males produce catkin looking stroboli while the females produce a short reproductive structure with 2 lobes (hence the name, biloba).

Males in a "catkin like" structure.

Female trees develop a fleshy cone like structure. After they ripen and fall they produce butyric acid, which smell like someone else's vomit. Unfortunately they are not reproductive for 25 or so years, so its too late to pull it out (buy named cultivars). Fleshy, edible, used for centuries as a medicinal crop.

Downtown Santa Cruz sidewalk.

Bark is pretty, deeply fissured looks sort of like cork with age.

Misidentification: Not a chance.

Locations:
Aptos
1842 Calypso Dr.

Corralitos

1649 Hames Rd. Wonderful specimen (seen above in it's fall foliage.)

Capitola
124 Central Ave - Very large specimen.

Santa Cruz
Clock tower, cultivar Saratoga, with great fall color, nice pyramidal habit and a male.

500 Block of Washington. Quite a few very old specimens, seed grown for sure as their are some females in the mix.

Olea europaea - Olive

The olive tree is small evergreen tree or large shrub growing to about 25' here. It has a rounded spreading canopy with puffs of foliage arising from the multiple upright branches coming off of an gnarly old trunk. The trees have been planted for centuries for the olive and the oil that is pressed from them. They impart a classical Mediterranean look to a landscape in CA.

There are hundreds of cultivars, some grown for the fruit, others grown because they are fruitless. The ones below are the original 'Swan Hill',  a fruitless variety.

Leaves are evergreen, grayish green to bright green, oppositely arranged, narrowly elliptical to oblong, 1 1/2" to 3" long by about 1/2" wide margins entire, upper surface with varying degrees of hairs with cause the foliage to be gray colored. The lower surface is silver colored as is the petiole. 

Stems are thin, covered with white hairs like the bottom of the leaves. Buds are very small.

Flowers are small, yellowish green color in late spring, not really noticeable unless you are allergic to the pollen. They are fragrant as well.

Fruit, do I need to show you a picture of an olive? Its a drupe of course with a single hard pit.

This is why many people plant seedless varieties such as Swan Hill.

The trunks of old trees is why I would want one in my yard. Deeply ridged but a smooth silver layer of bark.

Misidentification: Not likely, its pretty obvious with the silver covering over the leaves and the bark.

Locations: Tons of them, some nice ones along Portola Dr between 36th and 38th.

Schinus molle - California Peppertree

The California Peppertree, neither a Californian or a pepper but whats in a name anyway. Old trees are a sight to see with their lumpy trunks, weeping habit and nice attractive fruit, they seem to say old California landscape.

This broadleaf evergreen hails from South America, reaches a size of 15 to 30' by about the same, and forms a spreading rounded crown and weeping lateral branches.

The evergreen leaves are alternate, pinnately compound 6-12" long with 20 to 60 leaflets. Each leaflet is 1-2" long by 1/4" wide, lanceolate, with serrulate or entire margins. Sometimes there is a terminal leaflet and sometimes not.

Flowers are borne on separate male and female trees, females giving rise to the attractive fruit. Flowers are yellowish white, in many branched clusters borne at the tips of the branches.

Fruit is an attractive rose-colored or red drupe about 1/4" in diameter held in drooping clusters. They are messy to say the least.

The bark is stringy or fibrous, warty or bumpy, not sure what to call it but cool.

Great looking tree if not a mess, but hey, you cant have everything.

Misidentification; Other Schinus perhaps? The Brazilian peppertree is smaller, has fewer leaflets and more rounded canopy.

Maytenus boria has leaves very similar but not really, they just look like it, the mayten tree has simple leaves and not compound but they are easily confused.

Locations:

Aptos:

Capitola
Lots of places, a great one with a massive trunk at 608 Capitola Ave. I do like the ones on Depot Hill in Capitola, and you can see both Schinus species, S. terebinthifolius as well as Maytenus boria to clarify any identification issues. Check them all out at 112 Oakland St for the mayten, 202 for the Cal peppertree and then up a block to 502 El Salto for the Brazilian peppertree.

Soquel:
4500 Soquel Dr.

Santa Cruz:
924 Walnut