Oleaceae, the Olive Family
Chinese privet is an evergreen to semi-deciduous shrub or small tree that can grow to 16 feet high (or occasionally even taller). Plants are generally well-branched, with smooth bark that is gray to tan in color. The root system is shallow, but extensive, and frequently produces suckers. The branchlets are densely pubescent. The petioles (leaf stalks) and the leaf undersides are usually more sparsely pubescent, with the hairs sometimes restricted to the major veins on the undersides of mature leaves. Leaf arrangement is opposite to subopposite, with the leaves spaced at ½ to ¾ inch intervals on long, thin twigs. The leaves are typically two-ranked (held in a single plane), giving the branches a flattened appearance. The petioles are short (⅛ to ⅓ inch long). The leaf blades, which measure ¾ to 2 inches long, are ovate to elliptic in shape, with rounded to bluntly acute tips and entire or undulate margins. The small (⅙ inch long), white to off-white flowers are borne in 2 to 4 inch long, conical panicles at the branch tips and the leaf axils. The short-stalked flowers have two exserted (projecting beyond the petals) stamens, a cup-like green calyx bearing four small, pointed teeth and four petals that are fused into a short tube at the base. The flowers are odorous with a smell that is often described as disagreeable. The fruit are ⅕ inch long, blue-black drupes that are ellipsoidal to globose in shape and contain one to four seeds.
Chinese privet is native to China, Vietnam and Laos. It is naturalized in South Africa, the Mascarene Islands, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Argentina and much of the eastern and central United States, from southern New England west to Kansas and south to Texas and Florida. It is particularly problematic in wetlands and moist forests in the southeastern United States. Chinese privet has proven to be adaptable to a wide range of soil and light conditions.
This species has been vouchered with herbarium specimens from most of the panhandle, parts of North and Central Florida and Miami-Dade County. Chinese privet is most common on disturbed sites that are open, low and moist, but it has been reported from a variety of other habitats, including upland hammocks, pinelands, floodplains, maritime hammocks, beach dunes and the edges of swamps, marshes, lakes and streams.
There are at least four other species of Ligustrum cultivated and naturalized in Florida, including Japanese privet (L. japonicum), glossy privet (L. lucidum), California privet (L. ovalifolium) and waxleaf privet (L. quihoui). Chinese privet can be distinguished from these other species by the following combination of characteristics: young branches densely pubescent, blunt-tipped leaves less than 2 inches long, hairs present on the veins on the leaf undersides, flowers borne on pedicels (stalks) and corolla tube equaling (not exceeding) the corolla lobes in length. Chinese privet might also be confused with the native Florida swampprivet (Forestiera segregata), but that species is glabrous (hairless) on the leaf undersides and has apetalous (lacking petals) flowers borne on very short (< ½ inch) axillary inflorescences.
In optimal habitats, Chinese privet produces abundant root suckers, forming dense thickets over time. Thickets of plants produce very large quantities of fruit, which are consumed and dispersed by birds, as well as white-tailed deer. Seeds are also spread by water and in garden waste.
Chinese privet was introduced to the United States as an ornamental shrub in 1852 and was observed to have escaped from cultivation in the Southeast by the 1930s. Tolerant of low light conditions and poor soils, it has colonized abandoned homesteads, vacant lots, pastures and forests and is now regarded as one of the major weeds of woodland habitats in the southeastern United States. Research has shown that it has a negative impact on native plant growth and survival, nutrient availability and succession in forest habitats. There are several cultivars with variegated leaves that are popular horticultural subjects. Although the variegated cultivars are reportedly less floriferous, they are capable of producing viable seed, seedlings that revert to the invasive green form and non-variegated suckers.
Both the foliage and fruit of Chinese privet are reportedly poisonous to humans and livestock, but the toxic principle is not definitely known. This species can serve as an alternate host for the citrus whitefly, Dialeurodes citri.