Japanese Privet
Ligustrum japonicum · Oleaceae · 광나무
How to spot it
Told apart from similar privets by 4 to 5 pairs of raised lateral veins on the underside of the leaf and distinct gray lenticels on the twigs.
Look
- Leaves
- Broadly egg-shaped to egg-oblong leathery simple leaves 5 to 10 cm long, smooth-edged, dark green and smooth. Four to five pairs of lateral veins are raised on the underside.
- Flowers
- Cream-white flowers open in late spring in terminal panicles 5 to 15 cm long, with a smell many people find unpleasant.
- Fruit
- Flattened berry-like drupes about 5 mm long turn from green to bluish black in autumn.
- Bark
- Twigs are smooth and gray with prominent lenticels.
Where it grows
- Native to
- Native to southeastern China and the temperate zone of East Asia.
- Ecology
- Tolerates drought and salt spray and adapts to various soils, but cannot grow in waterlogged ground. It grows fast and becomes weedy in disturbed areas.