Garrya congdonii, or Congdon silktassel, a fairly common evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...

 shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 native to the northern California Coast Ranges, is one of a small biological family of approximately twenty known species in the family Garryaceae

Garryaceae

Garryaceae is a small family of dicotyledons, including only two genera:*Garrya Douglas ex Lindl., 1834. About 16-18 species.*Aucuba Thunb., 1783. About 3-10 species....

, most of which are Garrya. While the female and male sexual organ

Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....

s of Congdon silktassel are on separate plants, the pendant male catkin

Catkin

A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated but sometimes insect pollinated . They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged closely along a central stem which is often drooping...

s are much more showy. This plant is reasonably attractive and neat enough in its growing habit to be appealing as a landscape

Landscape

Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...

 species. It is stocked commonly at commercial plant nurseries. All Garrya are associated with warm temperate regions of North America.

Description

Congdon silktassel has a multi-furcate trunk branching structure yielding an almost spherical form. The height can attain four meters, but more commonly averages two to three meters in the wild. Congdon silktassel, as all the genus Garrya, have opposite leaves that have a tough leathery feel, glossy green on top, but paler, slightly furry and duller on the underside. The dioecious

Dioecious

Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

 flowers are concentrated in inflorescence

Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

s which cascade downward as ament

Ament

Ament may refer to:* Ament , a cylindrical flower cluster* Ament , an ancient Egyptian fertility goddessPeople with the surname Ament:* Jeff Ament , American rock bassist* Pat Ament , American rock climber...

s of approximately three to five centimeters in length. While the Congdon silktassel manifests separate male and female plants, the pendant male catkins are much more evident, up to 25 centimeters long; those of the female are shorter and silver-grey. Although the flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s bloom in late January and February, dried bract

Bract

In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis, or cone scale. Bracts are often different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of a different color, shape, or texture...

s remain on the tree well into summer as light gray decorations. The plant has smooth dark bark

Bark

Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

, dark-greenish when young, but with age the bark roughens. New twig

Twig

A twig is a small thin terminal branch of a woody plant. Twigs are critically important in identification of trees, shrubs and vines, especially in wintertime. The buds on the twig are an important diagnostic characteristic, as are the abscission scars where the leaves have fallen away...

s are green and moderately stout.

For pistillate flowers, above each small bract there is a solitary flower inside the inflorescence. This plant produces tiny dark seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s that can become airborne as small fluffy wind-blown cotton. The ripened purple to black fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 of about seven millimeters in diameter has a hard desiccated shell, but is somewhat fleshy on the interior. In the case of stamen

Stamen

The stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...

ate infloresences, there are a total of four stamens per flower; moreover, above each bract pair there is a triplet of flowers.

The unique characteristics of Congdon silktassel are its leathery convex green (with a very slight yellowish tinge) leaves with wavy leaf margins, coupled with dense individual hairs on the leaf undersides that are scarcely distinguishable with a hand lens. Its leaf blades are six to eight centimeters in length, and has petiole

Petiole (botany)

In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...

s which range in length from six to twelve millimeters. For identification purposes, Congdon silktassel has leaf hairs that are distinguishable with a hand lens, and both leaf blades and petiole

Petiole (botany)

In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...

s are about two thirds the size of those on Coast silktassel.

Habitat

Congdon silktassel is found in several plant communities, principally in drier inner coastal California ranges no more than 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

; the main associations are Coastal chaparral

Chaparral

Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...

, Mixed evergreen forest

Evergreen forest

An temperate evergreen forest is a forest consisting entirely or mainly of evergreen trees that retain green foliage all year round. Such forests exist in the tropics primarily as broadleaf evergreens, and in temperate and boreal latitudes primarily as coniferous evergreens.-Tropical evergreen...

 (near a chaparral area) and Northern coastal sage

Sagebrush

Sagebrush is a common name of a number of shrubby plant species in the genus Artemisia native to western North America;Or, the sagebrush steppe ecoregion, having one or more kinds of sagebrush, bunchgrasses and others;...

 scrub. This plant can tolerate moderately heavy clay

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

 soils and serpentine

Serpentine soil

A serpentine soil is derived from ultramafic rocks, in particular serpentinite, a rock formed by the hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle....

 areas, but likes soils pH

PH

In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...

 to lie in the range of six to eight. An example of serpentine soils habitat is in The Cedars of Sonoma County, California.

This plant is rather resistant to being grazed by deer or rabbits, and is hardy to cold temperatures of about 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Congdon silktassel is moderately drought-tolerant, but is more luxuriant with rainfall of about 22 inches per annum.

Differences with other Garrya species

Congdon silktassel is usually found at elevations above 200 meters. This species is usually found within the mountains of the inner Pacific Coast

Pacific Coast

A country's Pacific coast is the part of its coast bordering the Pacific Ocean.-The Americas:Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western border.* Geography of Canada* Geography of Chile* Geography of Colombia...

 range, such as Mount Hamilton

Mount Hamilton (California)

Mount Hamilton is a mountain in California's Diablo Range, in Santa Clara County, California. Mount Hamilton, at is the tallest mountain overlooking Silicon Valley, and is the site of Lick Observatory, the first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory. The various summits along its...

 ranging north to the inner coast range in Sonoma County

Sonoma County, California

Sonoma County, located on the northern coast of the U.S. state of California, is the largest and northernmost of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. Its population at the 2010 census was 483,878. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa....

, which is where the specimen photographed herein was found. Coast silktassel (Garrya elliptica) is most closely related species. Coast silktassel has similar wavy undulated entire leaf margins with somewhat darker glossier leaves, and the leaf topsides are more waxy and not quite so leathery as Congdon. The whitish hairs on the leaf underside of Coast silktassel are not readily visible with a hand lens as for Congdon silktassel. Coast silktassel is most commonly seen growing as individual plants rather than in groves, and can be found in the Montara Mountain

Montara Mountain

Montara Mountain, positioned between the unincorporated community of Montara, California to the southwest and the city of Pacifica, California to the north, forms the northern spur of the Santa Cruz Mountains, a narrow mountain range running the length of the San Francisco Peninsula that separates...

 range, San Bruno Mountain

San Bruno Mountain

San Bruno Mountain in northern San Mateo County, California is the northernmost part of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the mountain lies within the San Bruno Mountain State Park, a unique open-space island in the midst of the San Francisco Peninsula's urbanization. Next to the state park is the...

 and outer coastal ranges in Marin County

Marin County, California

Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...

 such as Mount Tamalpais

Mount Tamalpais

Mount Tamalpais is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mount Tamalpais State Park and the Mount Tamalpais Watershed.-Geography:...

.

Both Fremont silktassel (Garrya fremontii) and Ashy silktassel (Garrya flavescens) have similar fruit characteristics, but have a flat leaf margin. Fremont silktassel has yellow-green leaves and fruits that are almost lacking in hairs. Fremont silktassel is found from the Mount Hamilton area and Loma Prieta

Loma Prieta

Loma Prieta is a Northern California mountain located in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The peak is located on private property, about west of Morgan Hill and within the boundaries of Santa Clara County...

 area ranging north to Marin County (for example, on Mount Tamalpais. Ashy silktassel (Garrya flavescens pallida) has grayish leaves and is reported to occur in the Alameda County

Alameda County, California

Alameda County is a county in the U.S. state of California. It occupies most of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,510,271, making it the 7th most populous county in the state...

hills.