Olea europaea

Olive

Family: Oleaceae · Type: tree · Not Native

Conservation status: Cal-IPC Yes

Olive is a naturalized tree found in southern North Coast Ranges, Great Valley, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, western South Coast Ranges, Southern California, and northern Channel Islands at elevations below 200 meters. Flowering from February to June, this tree produces small white flowers with 4 ovate-elliptical lobes arranged in narrow axillary raceme-like panicles. Growing to less than 10 meters tall with gnarled trunks and gray bark that becomes furrowed with age, it has distinctive narrowly elliptical leaves 20 to 70 millimeters long that are green on top and silver-scaly underneath. Its leaves have short petioles 2 to 7 millimeters long and a width of 6 to 16 millimeters, providing a distinctive silvery-green appearance. The fruit is an oily, green to black ovoid drupe 9 to 20 millimeters long, characteristic of cultivated olive trees.

Habitat: Generally waif, persisting from cultivation

Bloom period: Feb-Jun

Elevation: < 200 m

Bioregions: s NCoR, GV, CCo, SnFrB, w SCoRO, SCo, n ChI (Santa Cruz Island)

California counties: San Diego, Santa Barbara, Kern, Ventura, Santa Clara, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Joaquin, Orange, Tulare, Butte, Sonoma, Marin, Sacramento, Contra Costa, Solano, Alameda, Tehama, Napa, San Mateo, San Luis Obispo, Yolo, Monterey

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