Growth habit It has a multi-furcate branching structure yielding an almost spherical form. The height averages in the wild. Like others of its genus,
G. elliptica has
opposite leaves with a tough leathery feel, glossy green on top, but paler and duller on the underside.
Flowers The
dioecious flowers are concentrated in
inflorescences which cascade downward as
aments of in length. While it manifests separate male and female plants, the pendant male
catkins are much more showy and are grey-green and up to long; the female ones are shorter and silver-grey. Although the flowers bloom in late winter and early spring, dried
bracts remain on the plant well into summer as light gray decorations. The plant has smooth bark, dark-greenish when young, but roughening with age. New twigs 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 seeds. The ripened purplish black fruit of about 1 cm in diameter has a hard desiccated coating, but is rather fleshy on the interior. There are a total of four stamens per flower; moreover, above each bract pair there is a triplet of flowers. The cultivar 'James Roof' has catkins up to in length.
Leaves The unique characteristics of
Garrya elliptica are its waxy
convex 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 in length, and the
petioles range in length from 6–12 mm. For identification purposes Congdon silk-tassel (
Garrya congdonii) is most closely related. Congdon silk-tassel has the same leaf appearance, but leaf hairs are distinguishable with a hand lens, and both leaf blades and
petioles are about two thirds the size of Coast silk-tassel. Both Fremont silk-tassel (
Garrya fremontii) and ashy silk-tassel (
Garrya flavescens) have similar fruit characteristics, but have a flat leaf margin. ==Distribution and habitat==