Buddleja saligna

False olive, False Olive

Family: Scrophulariaceae · Type: shrub · Not Native

False olive is a naturalized shrub found in the Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Barbara regions in disturbed areas and chaparral at elevations of 500 to 1,000 meters. Flowering from September to October, this plant produces white or cream-colored flowers with occasional reddish centers, arranged in wide-spreading panicle-like clusters. Growing as a small tree or shrub up to 10 meters tall with distinctively four-angled twigs, it features elongated branches with a spreading habit. Its leaves are linear to oblong, 1.5 to 10 centimeters long, with a shiny olive-green upper surface and dense white stellate hairs underneath, with margins slightly rolled under. The fruit is a small ovoid structure about 2 millimeters long, which remains nestled in the persistent calyx.

Habitat: Disturbed areas, chaparral

Bloom period: Sep-Oct

Elevation: 500-1000 m

Bioregions: WTR (Santa Monica Mtns), SnGb

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.