Olea is a genus of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae. It includes 12 species native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Middle East, southern Europe, Africa, southern Asia, and Australasia. They are evergreen trees and shrubs, with small, opposite, entire leaves. The fruit is a drupe. Leaves of Olea contain trichosclereids.
For humans, the most important and familiar species is by far the olive (Olea europaea), native to the Mediterranean region, Africa, southwest Asia, and the Himalayas, which is the type species of the genus. The native olive (O. paniculata) is a larger tree, attaining a height of 15–18 m in the forests of Queensland, and yielding a hard and tough timber. The yet harder wood of the black ironwood O. capensis, an inhabitant of Natal, is important in South Africa.
Olea species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including double-striped pug.
Species
12 species are currently accepted:6
- Olea capensis L. – Small Ironwood – Comoros, Madagascar; Africa from South Africa north to Ethiopia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, etc.
- Olea capitellata Ridl. – Pahang
- Olea chimanimani Kupicha – Chimanimani Mountains of Mozambique and Zimbabwe
- Olea europaea L. – Olive – Mediterranean, Africa, southwestern Asia, Himalayas; naturalized many other places
- Olea exasperata Jacq. – South Africa
- Olea lancea Lam. – Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues Island
- Olea luzonica Kiew – Philippines (Luzon)
- Olea paniculata R.Br. – Yunnan, India, Indochina, Indonesia, Kashmir, Malaysia, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu
- Olea puberula Ridl. – Peninsular Malaysia
- Olea schliebenii Knobl. – Tanzania
- Olea welwitschii (Knobl.) Gilg & G.Schellenb. – central and eastern Africa from Ethiopia to Zimbabwe
- Olea woodiana Knobl. – South Africa, Eswatini, Kenya, Tanzania
Formerly placed here
- Chionanthus foveolatus (E.Mey.) Stearn (as O. foveolata E.Mey.)
- Ligustrum compactum var. compactum (as O. compacta Wall. ex G.Don)
- Nestegis cunninghamii (Hook.f.) L.A.S.Johnson (as O. cunninghamii Hook.f.)
- Noronhia emarginata (Lam.) Thouars (as O. emarginata Lam.)
- Osmanthus americanus (L.) Benth. & Hook.f. ex A.Gray (as O. americana L.)
- Osmanthus heterophyllus (G. Don) P.S.Green (as O. aquifolium Siebold & Zucc. or O. ilicifolia Siebold ex Hassk.)
- Tetrapilus borneensis (Boerl.) de Juana (as Olea borneensis Boerl.)
- Tetrapilus brachiatus Lour. (as Olea brachiata (Lour.) Merr.)
- Tetrapilus rubrovenius (Elmer) L.A.S.Johnson (as Olea rubrovenia (Elmer) Kiew)
- Tetrapilus tsoongii (Merr.) de Juana (as Olea tsoongii (Merr.) P.S.Green and Olea yuennanensis Hand.-Mazz.)
References
Sunset Western Garden Book. 1995. pp. 606–607. ↩
Olea L. Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 28 November 2023. https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:328104-2 ↩
Flora of China v 15 p 295, 木犀榄属 mu xi lan shu, Olea Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 7. 1753. http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=122774 ↩
Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, Olea europaea L. http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do?name_id=355112 ↩
Altevista Flora Italiana, Oleastro, Olea europaea L. http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=olea+europaea ↩
Olea L. Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 28 November 2023. https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:328104-2 ↩
GRIN. "Species in GRIN for genus Olea". Taxonomy for Plants. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland: USDA, ARS, National Genetic Resources Program. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20150924124109/http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/splist.pl?8414 ↩