Wild Olive

Description

Botanical Name:  Cartrema americanum, syn. Osmanthus americanum

Common Name:  Wild Olive, American Devilwood

Description:  We’ve all smelled the delicious bloom fragrance of the non-native Tea Olive, Osmanthus fragrans. But did you know that there is a Florida native equivalent to it that smells just as delicious?? Yep, our Wild Olive is in the same family with the Tea Olive, and they look a lot alike with their evergreen leaves and creamy white flowers that have that same heavenly fragrance.

Wild Olive is a very pretty small tree/large shrub that grows to 10 – 20′ tall x 10′ wide. It has a slow to moderate growth rate. It can be used as a specimen or as a hedge. Keep in mind that heavy shearing will also remove the flowers. Grows best in part sun to part shade areas of your garden. Grows fine in sand, clay, loam, or high organic material soils that are moist but well drained. Has very good wind resistance. Its native habitat is moist sites in coastal hammocks, floodplains, bluffs, flatwoods, and bay swamps, so it’s a rain garden candidate. However, it is also somewhat drought tolerant. It will look better though if it gets supplemental water during extreme drought times.

This plant is dioecious, which means that a male pollinator plant is required to get a female fruit set. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen these sold marked as male or female.

The bark is smooth and gray in color. The leaves are opposite, evergreen, and leathery, elliptic-oblong in outline, with entire margins. Flowers are produced in panicles in the axils of the leaves. Flowers are unisexual with four cream or yellow corolla lobes. The fruit is a drupe that become dark purple-black at maturity.

Larger birds and small mammals eat the fruit. The flowers attract bees and other pollinators. Is deer resistant.

Not salt tolerant of inundation by salty or brackish water. Moderately tolerant of salty wind and salt spray.

This plant in 3-gallon containers is 1.5 – 3′ tall.

This plant in 7-gallon containers is 3 – 6′ tall.

Plant Lore:  This species gets its common name of “Devilwood” due to the difficulty in splitting its wood. As the tree grows the stem rotates in a corkscrew fashion. The synonym genus name, Osmanthus, comes from the Greek words for “odor” and “flower,” referring to the fragrant blossoms.

Florida Hardiness Zones 8 – 9