Forestiera pubescens

Desert olive

Family: Oleaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Desert olive is a California native shrub found in southeastern northern Coast Ranges, southern Sierra Nevada Foothills, central and eastern Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi, eastern San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, southern Sierra Nevada, and Mojave Desert in streambanks, canyons, and washes at elevations of 100 to 1,800 meters. Flowering from March to April, this shrub produces small greenish-yellow flowers that emerge before its leaves. Growing 1.2 to 5 meters tall with many rounded stems featuring smooth tan-gray bark and short, rigidly thorny twigs, it develops a distinctive branching structure. Its leathery leaves are elliptic to ovate, 1.5 to 4 centimeters long, with entire or minutely toothed edges. The fruit is an elliptical, purple-black drupe 5 to 8 millimeters long that becomes slightly glaucous when mature.

Habitat: Streambanks, canyons, washes

Bloom period: Mar-Apr

Elevation: 100-1800 m

Bioregions: se NCoRI, s SNF, c&amps SNH (e slope), Teh, e SnFrB, SCoR, TR, PR, s SNE, DMoj

California counties: San Bernardino, Kern, Los Angeles, Monterey, Riverside, Inyo, San Joaquin, Merced, Contra Costa, Santa Barbara, Alameda, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Colusa, Sutter, Ventura, Stanislaus, San Benito, Santa Clara, Napa

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