Pinus strobus 'Tortuosa' - Contorted Eastern White Pine

And now for something completely different. You don't see many white pines in our latitude and elevation, there are a few (P. flexilis) here and there but this one is very different.

Eastern White Pines are quite narrow when young eventually developing into a flat-topped tree with great age. Pinus strobus has lots of cultivars, many are dwarfs, some weeping ones and an occasional variegated one but 'Torulosa' adds lots of  interest with it's twisted leaves. Gotta love it. The only real difference is the leaves but it also does not grow as tall, maxing out at about 40'.  This is the one located on Avalon St in SC.

The evergreen needle-like leaves are in clusters of 5's, each about 3-4" long, twisted, slender and very soft to the touch. They are held on the tree only 2 years so they will only be found at the ends of the stems.

Stems are light olive green and mostly glabrous. May find some hairs behind the bundles but not very noticeable. Interestingly they are normal, not contorted like the leaves. Below is a picture from the species and not 'Tortuosa'.

Male cones are yellow when opening (as the pollen is yellow) and the females are red, but they are almost always way too high up the tree to see.

The mature cones are medium brown, 3 - 6" long and slender. These are not 'Torulosa' but they are P. strobus. These you can see are not mature and such are still green. For the most part, white pines have narrow cones without a large prickle on the ends of the scales.

Misidentification: Always look at the needle number first. These are in 5's and they are twisted.

Location:
Capitola: 105 Oakland Ave, on Depot Hill. Not real obvious, but close to the house and driveway. Nice specimen. So bummed, removed winter 2013.

Santa Cruz: 115 Avalon. There is a nice Cryptomeria japonica 'Elegans' right in front of this pine. And if you are there be sure to look kitty corner 204 Avalon, there is a Parrotia persica.

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 

Jubaea chilensis

The Chilean wine palm is from South America and is restricted to very small areas in southern Chile. And what a cool looking palm it is. Know for its massive straight trunk you can find at least 2 nice old specimens in town.

The common name is derived from the use of the sap and the heart (the growing point of the palm which once removed the tree dies) to make a wine or some sort of fermented drink.

This specimen below is the most commonly seen one in Santa Cruz and is located on the hillside below the mission facing downtown. Its next to a beautiful Bunya-Bunya tree.

The palm reportedly can reach 80' but I don't think so around here. It has a large crown of 40 or so pinnate leaves that are gray green in color and 12 or so feet long. When the leaves fall they do so very cleanly leaving the smooth trunk, like the Queen Palm, and unlike the Canary Island Palm. This is a specimen from Cal Poly SLO.

Palm flowers are usually very pretty if you stop to look at them. Usually a shade of yellow, they have a large bract that encloses the whole inflorescence (you can see it below, it looks somewhat like a boat. The male and female flowers are on the same inflorescence.

This is a close up of the smooth trunk. You can see the attachment points of the leaves and if you look closely you can see the little spots where the vascular tissues were connected.

This is a "young" specimen at the palm collection at Lake Merritt in Oakland. Worth a trip if you like palms.

Misidentification; Most likely you will think it's a Canary Island Palm because of the leaves, or perhaps a date palm, but the date palm trunks are quite thin and the Canary Island palms do not have a smooth bark.

Location.
Santa Cruz. On the hillside behind the old mission overlooking downtown, just above the intersection of Mission and Center St.

Santa Cruz. Corner of Locust and Pine Place. This one has a funny story. My class was looking at the great purple beech on Green and Cross St when the owner came out very excited. Not always a good thing. She was so excited to tell her sister that someone was talking about her tree, because her sister was always bragging about her special tree. She told us where it was and also told us that the rumor was that there was a line of wine palms planted from the mission to the water and these are the only two left.

Fagus sylvatica

I always like seeing beech trees in the spring, and while driving today on Highway 129 at the intersection of Coward Rd. sits an old farm house with no fewer that 4 beautiful old purple beeches. Can't say for sure what variety but considering the age most likely 'Purpurea'.

But I love all beech trees, not equally of course. This below is one at Kew Gardens and is the green weeping variety 'Pendula'.

We don't see lots of beech trees here. In England or in the Pacific NW you will see tons of them. The great thing about beeches is there are so many variations. You can find green ones, purple ones, yellow ones, tricolored ones, narrow ones, weeping ones, upright weeping ones, some with round leaves, narrow leaves, and on an on and just about any combination of the above. We do have some green ones, and a few weeping purple ones as well as a handful of purple ones. These are in a collection of beech trees at Windsor Park.

Beeches are deciduous trees, 45-70 feet tall and maybe 40 plus wide. The trunks are massive, and beautiful in their own right. Most purple beeches develop a rounded to oval crown with the lower branches remaining and will cover the ground if not pruned up. The canopy is quite full but top out at 45' feet. Most beeches are very pyramidal when young.

Leaves are alternate, simple, elliptical to oval shaped, about 4" long, with very distinct veins. Margins are undulate and sometimes ciliate (short hairs sticking out from the margins. They are also hard to get the color in a photograph. 

Stems are smooth, even with age. The buds are long and sharp pointed and are held at a 45 degree angle to the zigzag stem. Very easy to identify in the winter.

Trunk are massive with beautiful smooth bark. A muse see for sure.

Flowers are hardly noticeable, but the fruit that develops is a 1" oval capsule with 4 openings and long burrs on the outside.

This is a picture of some roots from trees in England.

Beeches are often used as hedges in the UK.

This is 'Purple Fountains' with its upright leader and pendulous laterals. (see below for locations)

Other beeches you might encounter:

The tricolor beech, 'Roseoomarginata' (also called 'Argenteo Marginata') is popular but seems to burn.

Fagus sylvatica 'Aurea'

Misidentification: Not sure, look at the leaves, and especially the lateral buds.

Location:

Watsonville. 

Intersection of highway 129 and Coward Rd.

Casserly Rd, about the 900 block but I am not sure what that means. There is a grove of 5 just next to Four Winds Nursery across from Suncrest Nursery.

Santa Cruz.

Along Mission St (1125 or so) is one that had some utility pruning. There is a smaller one just across the street as well.

Intersection of Green St and Cross St. is a nice one.

Capitola.

4725 Clares is a Green weeping green one and an upright purple one.

4581 Opal Cliff Drive has 3 purple weeping ones, (there are 2 purple weepers in the industry, one narrow upright 'Purple Fountain' with weeping laterals and one with a weeping terminal leader), this location both of them.

4655 Capitola Road is a purple weeping one

Filoli Garden has a very nice old hedge.

Lyonothamnus floribundus aspleniifolius

The Catalina Ironwood is a really unique and attractive tree. Native to the Channel Islands off the coast of California. The variety with cut leaves is more common in nature as well as in cultivation. The trees stand out due to their habit, tall and narrow, growing up to 60' x 20'. Evergreen, with distinct leaves and beautiful fibrous bark make it a popular landscape tree. This is a fairly young specimen growing in a grove at Cabrillo.

The leaves are very distinct. Alternately arranged, pinnately compound, with deeply divided margins, that look like large fins or saw blades. Even the rachis is toothed. Dark green, 5-6" long, shiny, lighter on the lower surface. Usually 5 but sometimes 3 leaflets, considered palmately compound by some authorities. Jepson says, "simple to pinnately to palmately compound". Say what?

Young stems brown, with a nice large pointed terminal bud.

Flowers are very showy, but can be very high up in an old tree. Individual flowers are very small, arranged in a flat topped inflorescence that measures 8-16" across. Blooms in the middle of summer. 

This is the remnants of the flower cluster.

The bark is really one of the nicest features of the tree. Reddish brown to tan exfoliating in long thin strips. 

Misidentification: not likely, the leaves are very distinct.

Location:
Aptos: Sesnon house has 2 flanking the old house,
584 Rio Del Mar Blvd, is a nice large one.

Capitola: Interchange of 41st and Highway 1

Arbutus unedo

The Strawberry Tree is a commonly planted, slow growing evergreen tree reaching 10 - 25' tall x about the same width. Usually multi-stemmed forming a spreading oval shape, often wider than tall. Perhaps less commonly planted anymore with the introduction of A. 'Marina'. Images here are from Stanford, and show it as a tree or as a shrub.

 Leaves are evergreen, alternate, simple, elliptical to oblong to obovate shaped, margins coarsely serrated and often somewhat wavy. They have a nice medium green color and are lighter green below. Leaves are stiff, typical of many plants from Mediterranean climates. 

Flowers are white, urn-shaped in small pendulous clusters. Very attractive if looked at closely. Not that showy in mass from 30'.

The fruit are an attractive red/orange color. They are round, fleshy and sort of fuzzy, about  1/2 - 3/4" diameter borne in small clusters.

Stems are bright red on young vigorous branches.

Bark reddish brown with thin peeling strips.

Misidentification: Can look sort of like a Rahpiolepis shrub of maybe an Escalonia that is pruned as a small tree.

Locations: 

Aptos: Cabrillo College at the Children's Center 

545 Monterey Dr.

Populus nigra 'Italica'

The Lombardy Poplar is a classic tree with its distinct narrow habit that you can see from miles away. It is very commonly seen in orchards as windbreaks and perhaps in its native region of Italy. Thankfully it is not used much anymore in residential areas, at least by friendly neighbors. This is a large, narrow, upright deciduous tree growing very fast to 50 - 60' x 10-15' wide. The tree is notorious for suckering and has very invasive roots.

Leaves are alternate, simple rhombic-ovate to triangular, 2-4", serrated margins with an accumulate tip. Dark green upper, lighter beneath. Like most poplars the petiole is oval in cross section, which causes the leaf to move slightly in the wind. 

Flowers are males only and do not produce the "cotton".

Stems are slender, light brown. Terminal bud long and pointed.

Bark is gray or dark gray and fissured.

Not planted much any more due to a canker disease (Cytospora canker)  that will kill the tree.

Misidentification: Other poplars maybe, look at the leaf, this one is very deltoid, but also look at the shape. There are some hybrid poplars that are narrow and grow really fast, but I dont think I have seen them here.

Location: Along highway 1 between the old drive-in movie theater (now the swap meet- sooner or later to be the new Sutter hospital building)

Santa Cruz: on the boarder of the Ross Store along Hiway 1