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Oleaceae
Olive Family
By: George
Rogers and Cara DelSignore
The
Oleaceae are a family of some 24 genera and 900 species well represented in
temperate and tropical regions (HUX, BA1), and in cultivation. They have
opposite leaves without stipules. The flowers are radially symmetrical, usually
small, usually white, usually fragrant (see list below), and with 2 stamens.
This is the family of olives, osmanthus, true jasmines (many plants with
“jasmine” in the name are not jasmines), ligustrum, ash, lilac, forsythia, and
forestiera. They are important locally as cultivated and as wild plants.
Key to
Important Oleaceae in South Florida Landscaping
1. Leaves
pinnately compound…2
1. Leaves
simple or with three leaflets…3
2. Tree…Ash
(Fraxinus caroliniana)
2. Shrub or
vine…Poets Jasmine (Jasminum officinale)
3. Tree;
leaves notched at the tip; fruit the size of a golf ball…Madagascar-Olive (Noronohia
emarginata)
3. Shrub or
vine; leaves rounded to pointed at the tip; fruit smaller than a golf ball…4
4. Flowers
green, inconspicuous; leaves with tiny dots on the undersides…Florida Privet (Forestiera
segregata)
4. Flowers
white or yellow; leaves not dotted…5
5. Flowers
yellow; leaves with three leaflets…Primrose Jasmine (Jasminum mesnyi)
5. Flowers
white; leaves simple…6
6. Large
shrubs (or small trees) with white flowers in panicles; lenticels raised and
conspicuous…Japanese Privet (Ligustrum japonicum)
6. Vines or
small shrubs; flowers not numerous in panicles; lenticels variable…7
7. Flowers
double…Jasminum sambac ‘Grand Duke of Tuscany’
7. Flowers
not double…8
8. Leaves
conspicuously pubescent…J. multiflorum (Downy Jasmine)
8.
Leaves glabrous or nearly so…9
9. Calyx
lobes minute (tiny deltoid teeth)…J. volubile (Wax Jasmine)
9. Calyx
lobes long, linear. ..10
10. Corolla
tube ¾” long, the lobes narrow, linear; leaves flat…J. nitidum (Shining
Jasmine)
10. Corolla
tube 1” long, the lobes narrowly elliptic; leaves wrinkled…J. dichotomum
(Gold Coast Jasmine)
Many
so-called "Jasmines" are not true jasmines. These include:
Confederate
Jasmine (Trachelospermum in the Apocynaceae)
Night-Blooming and Day-Bloooming Jasmine (Cestrum in the Solanaceae)
Orange-Jasmine (Murraya in the Rutaceae)
Pinwheel
Jasmine (Tabernaemontana in the Apocynaceae)
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