Perhaps these illustrations will be even more like your description.

http://plantsdatabase.com/go/54173/index.html

Gene

Alan wrote:

When I was on holiday in the Venice Beach/ Marina Del Rey area of Los
Angeles I saw an amazing conifer tree/large shrub, that I have never seen in
the British Isles. It was quite popular and seemed to be in a lot of gardens
in the area. I've tried searching the Web but it's near impossible to find
anything with out a name.

The plant was a light green/yellow colour.The specimens I saw were about
2-3m (6-10ft) high and the same distance spread.I didn't get a very good
look at the trees but there didn't seem to be much of a trunk visible.Now my
powers of description are not the most impressive, so please bear with me,
but the single most identifiable feature of the plant, its amazing crown,
can only be described as being like "a fire blowing the wind, but frozen
still!"

What I mean is imagine a fire with its flames flicking and being drawn out
by the wind but instead of flames think of beautiful light green ferny
foliage-quite amazing.My initial thought was that it was some small variant
or cultivar of the Monterey Cypress but that's just pure guess work.

One final clue, on the Jay Leno show there are some plants in the set, in
with the 'scenic view', well, right behind Jay there are two plants, one is
some kind of Aloe or Agave but the other is what looks like a very young or
small version of the plant I am talking about (not as wind swept looking
though!).

Please, any help would be much appreciated.Thanks
Alan.
email:
flywalk(at)eircom(dot)net