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Garrya elliptica
Also called Silk Tassel, Silk Tassel Tree, Wavyleaf Silktassel
Coast silk tassel is an evergreen shrub or small tree from coastal California and southern Oregon, grown for its neat habit and silky catkins. It is low maintenance and does best in well-drained soil, often against a wall or as a coastal windbreak.
Garrya elliptica, the coast silk-tassel, silk tassel bush or wavyleaf silktassel, is a species of flowering plant in the family Garryaceae, native to the coastal ranges of California and southern Oregon. It is an erect, bushy, evergreen shrub reaching a height of 2–5 m (7–16 ft).
Garrya elliptica is appealing as an ornamental plant with a neat growing habit, and is widely used for landscape purposes. It is a low-maintenance plant that thrives in a range of locations, but is typically seen growing against a wall, or as a windbreak in coastal areas. The cultivar 'James Roof' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Garrya elliptica is found in several plant communities, principally in drier coastal California and southern Oregon no more than 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean; the main associations are coastal sage and chaparral ecoregion, Northern coastal scrub, Mixed evergreen coastal forest and Northern coastal sage scrub. This plant can tolerate moderately heavy clay soils and serpentine areas, but likes soils pH to lie in the range of six to eight.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Garrya elliptica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
