Ligustrum vulgare L.
common privet
Shrub, occasionally a small tree, to 5 m tall, deciduous, or partly so in warmer areas. Shoots puberulent. Petioles to 5 mm long, glabrous. Lamina 2-6 × 0.75-2.5 cm, lanceolate, elliptic, sometimes obovate (lvs of vegetative shoots often narrower), glabrous, dark shining green above; base cuneate; apex obtuse to acute. Panicles dense, pyramidal, to c. 8 cm long; branches densely puberulent, often angular; pedicels very short. Bracts and bracteoles linear-subulate to lanceolate or ovate, persisting after flowering, the lowest to 1.2 cm long. Fls fragrant. Calyx c. 1 mm long, glabrous; teeth very small. Corolla white; tube c. 2 mm long; lobes c. 3 mm long, ovate, spreading, somewhat involute at margin, obtuse. Stamens exserted, slightly < length of corolla lobes; anthers yellow. Style sightly exserted. Fr. (3)-5-10 mm diam., globose or subglobose, glossy black. Seed 4-5 mm long, obovoid to ellipsoid, flattened, shallowly ribbed.
N.: Tauranga, Wellington; S.: Canterbury (especially around Riccarton Bush, Christchurch, and some other old homesteads), C. Otago.
Europe 1872
Usually on waste land, roadside banks and in and around modified forest remnants.
FL Nov-Jan.
Poisonous (Connor 1977).
Common privet was introduced by early European settlers and must have escaped from cultivation soon after in the E. of the South Id. It has mainly been used to form hedges, but in modern times it has lost favour and is rarely planted now.
