Olea europaea L.
African olive
Dense bushy shrub or small tree to c. 7 m high; bark becoming rough. Shoots angular, lepidote when young. Lvs shortly petiolate. Lamina 5-11 × 0.8-2 cm (juvenile lvs smaller), lanceolate or narrow-elliptic, sparsely to densely lepidote beneath and appearing pale green or slightly silvery, dark green and lepidote or elepidote above; base attenuate; apex mucronate. Panicles axillary. Calyx 1-1.5 mm long; lobes broad-triangular, glabrous or somewhat lepidote. Corolla lobes 3-4 mm long, whitish, ± oblong, almost fleshy, patent at first, ultimately reflexed. Stamens slightly < corolla. Drupe 5-8 mm diam., globose to broad-ovoid, glossy, becoming red and ultimately black.
N.: occasional in N. Auckland, and the offshore islands around the Hauraki Gulf; K.: confined to the Terraces on Raoul Id.
Subsp. africana indigenous to E. Africa southwards to Cape Province, South Africa 1977
Open coastal scrub and modified areas near indigenous forest margins.
FL Jul-Mar.
On Norfolk Id African olive is an extremely aggressive weed and since the plant had shown similar tendencies on Raoul by the 1960's, an eradication programme was started a few years later. At present there are no mature plants on Raoul.
All naturalised material is referable to subsp. africana (Miller) Green, the African olive; this is often confused with the true or European olive, O. europaea subsp. europaea, in N.Z. and may have been introduced in mistake for it. The European olive is also cultivated and at least one specimen (CHR 214141, Kaipara Harbour (Pouto), Mason and Esler, 20.11.1970) probably represents a casual, self-sown plant of it. subsp. europaea has white lf undersurfaces (at least in N.Z.) and the ± oblong, black frs are 1-2 cm long. Wild forms in the Mediterranean region can have smaller, rounder frs, but the plants are usually spiny unlike subsp. africana. African olive was first recorded as O. africana.
