Cornus florida - Flowering Dogwood

The flowering dogwood trees are outstanding small trees for residential landscapes. Multi-seasonal tree if there ever was one. Layered horizontally tiered branches with great flowers and fall color. May not color up here in fall as well as other locations but its still a beautiful shape and the flowers are always nice.

Deciduous tree, slow grower for the most part to 20' and about as wide with a spreading flatted tiered habit, almost looking layered sometimes.

Leaves are opposite, simple, broadly elliptical to ovate to almost round, 2-4" long, Lower surface has a glaucous bloom. Dogwood veins are pinnate, but they look like they curve towards the tip of the leaf. Leaves look like dog ears, hanging down near the ends of the branches. 

This is one of many variegated cultivars, 'Cherokee Sunset' that shows off the dog ears better, assuming you don't have a german shepherd.

Flowers are really a mixture of small flowers and showy bracts. Plants bloom prior to leaf emergence. The bracts are usually white but many cultivars are pink to red. The bracts are usually rounded or slightly emarginate at the tip. Four "petals" and not 6 like the native dogwood. Stems are slightly hairy, sometimes with a bloom, eventually glabrous. Red or green color. Flower buds are very distinct. They look like flattened biscuits. You can see them in the picture with the fruit.

Fruit is a red drupe, not really showy but interesting. Many cultivars don't seem to produce many fruit.

Bark is very nice, alligator like bits and very attractive as well.

Fall color is spectacular, really. Reds are intense.

Too many cultivars to even discuss one but they come in different flower colors, red or whites and the foliage may have variegated white or yellow leaves. Hybrid exists with C. nutallii called 'Eddies Wonder'.

Misidentification: Other dogwoods most likely. Cornus kousa blooms after the foliage appears, C. capitata leaves are more narrow, almost elliptical and is evergreen.

Location:
Aptos
9053 Soquel Drive.  White and Red cultivars, The red one is close to the building.

Boulder Creek
Hiway 9

Felton
the 200 block of Lakeview Drive is a very nice one.

Arbutus menziesii - Pacific Madrone

The native Madrone is a large evergreen tree, 30-100' tall with an oval shape, or if smaller it might be more rounded and multi-stemmed developing in full sun. One of the best features is the bark, a rich red-orange peeling to expose a greenish wood, very smooth and student have said that the wood feels cool to the touch. The trees are beautiful but they are hard to grow in our urban soils. They prefer soils with excellent drainage.

This is one from the city of Port Angeles. You can see how large it is. (Google Earth it, its on the 200 block of W 8th St near the intersection of S. Cherry St)

This is one at the horticulture department at Cabrillo.

Leaves evergreen, simple, alternate, 3 - 6" long, leathery, elliptical to oval, dark green shiny on the upper surface, grayish on the lower with entire margins.

Falling after the new leaves emerge in the summer. I have seen the tree from a distance and wondered what it was, with what looked like big fruit hanging in the canopy, only to get a close look and see old leaves.

Stems are generally smooth but can be hairy when growing quickly.

Urn-shaped flowers, small about 1/4", white, tip of flower flairing outward. Sometimes pink colorations. Borne in panicles at the ends of the branches. Blooms in the spring only.

Fruit is a fleshy berry, rough outside, 1/2" diameter orange/red. Several black seeds inside.

Beyond beautiful. Bark has so many different seasons, from smooth, to reddish peeling in paper thin strips that sort of curl up and fall off to reveal a yellowish brown bark, to old bark that becomes dark brown and no longer peels, but has loose scales.

You have to love a good disease, these trees get Nattrassia cankers that create a pretty cool looking stem. They don't seem to die, just a bit disfigured.

Even the roots are a beautiful red, though the tree has to be up rooted for you to see this.

Misidentification: Lophostemon has similar looking leaves but not the stem. Both have nice peeling bark, but the older bark is very different and of course the flowers and fruit are very different.

Locations:
Aptos
Cabrillo College Hort department

324 Townsend Dr

Santa Cruz - Wilder St Park

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