Common Name: glossy privet
Family: Oleaceae
Common Synonyms: none
USDA Hardiness Zone: 8a-10b
Growth Habit: Evergreen shrub or small tree
Origin: China
FISC Category: 1
FDACS Listed Noxious Weed: No
Introduction Date: Earliest Florida herbarium specimen vouchered in 1936
IFAS Assessment:
Evergreen shrub or tree to 10 m tall, but typically smaller, with a dense, rounded crown and glabrous twigs with corky lenticels. Leaves opposite, simple, leathery, ovate to elliptic, to 15 cm long by 6 cm wide, glossy dark green above, margins entire, with a thin translucent vein often visible when held up to light, bases rounded to broadly wedge shaped, tips narrowing to a sharp point, leaves often V-shaped (as if folded lengthwise down the middle). Flowers small, white, fragrant, bisexual, numerous, in pyramidal clusters at branch tips. Corolla tube to 3 mm, equaling or shorter than the corolla lobes, stamens exerted beyond corolla. Fruit a persistent, globose to oblong, blackish-purple drupe, to 8 mm long.
Hammock and hardwood forest
When digging up plants, the entire root system must be removed to prevent resprouting. Seeds dispersed by birds.
NA
Dave's Garden. 2014. PlantFiles: Ligustrum lucidum. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/78040/. Accessed on June 20, 2014.
Langeland, K.A., H.M. Cherry, C.M. McCormick, K.C. Burks. 2008. Identification and Biology of Non-Native Plants in Florida's Natural Areas-Second Edition. IFAS Publication SP 257. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
Langeland, K.A., J.A. Ferrell, B. Sellers, G.E. MacDonald, and R.K. Stocker. 2011. Integrated management of non-native plants in natural areas of Florida. EDIS publication SP 242. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
Wunderlin, R. P., and B. F. Hansen. 2008. Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (http://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/).[S. M. Landry and K. N. Campbell (application development), Florida Center for Community Design and Research.] Institute for Systematic Botany, University of South Florida, Tampa.