Ligustrum sinense Lour.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Ligustrum sinense' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/ligustrum/ligustrum-sinense/). Accessed 2024-09-14.

Genus

Ligustrum

Infraspecifics

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

acute: Sharply pointed.
apex: (pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
globose: globularSpherical or globe-shaped.
lanceolate: Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
midrib: midveinCentral and principal vein in a leaf.

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Ligustrum sinense' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/ligustrum/ligustrum-sinense/). Accessed 2024-09-14.

Ligustrum sinense KR 659 collected from naturalised plants near Houston, Texas in 1984. It has shown no sign of self-sowing here (Ray Wood, Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, July 2024). Image John Grimshaw.

A deciduous or, in mild winters, nearly evergreen shrub, 12 to 20 ft high, occasionally taking the form of a small tree, of dense habit, rounded or flat-topped; twigs covered with a short, dense, brownish down. Leaves pale green, thin, elliptic, elliptic-oblong, or lanceolate, 1 to 3 in. long, 1⁄2 to 1 in. broad, tapering at the base, acute to bluntish at the apex, downy on the midrib beneath; stalk 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. long. Flowers white, produced in July in numerous downy panicles, 3 or 4 in. long, 11⁄2 to 2 in. wide. Fruits globose, black-purple, about 1⁄6 in. diameter, remaining on the branches until after the New Year.

Native of China; introduced by Fortune about 1852. I consider this the best and most ornamental of deciduous privets. It bears immense feathery masses of blossom in July, and they are usually followed by a wealth of dark purple fruits about the size of large shot, which make the shrub interesting through the winter. It is never seriously injured by cold, although in hard winters the twigs are occasionally cut back. Still, a sheltered position for it is preferable to one bleak and exposed, as it grows and flowers better then. It is now naturalised in parts of Australia and of the USA.

Large clusters of black-purple Ligustrum sinense fruit hang from the branches, providing a tempting meal for birds which disperse the seeds. It can become seriously invasive in consequence, as here in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia (August 2023). Image Mitchell Carle.

Ligustrum sinense flowering in the Westonbirt National Arboretum, UK, on 6th July 2014. Image Owen Johnson.

'Multiflorum'

This privet was grown by E. A. Bowles at Myddleton House, Enfield, as “L. ovalifolium multiforum” under which name he described and figured it in My Garden in Summer, pp. 284–285, and in Gard. Chron., Vol. 50 (1911), p. 237 and fig. 109. He received it from the nurseryman George Paul, who found the original plant in France growing in a hedge of L. ovalifolium and bought it for ten francs. It seems to have been, in fact, a floriferous form of L. sinense with reddish-brown anthers, and appeared in the first edition of this work (1913) as L. sinense var. multiflorum. It is possibly the same as the L. sinense floribundum, for which Paul had received a First Class Certificate in 1885.

var. stauntonii (DC.) Rehd.

Synonyms
L. stauntonii DC

Leaves oval or ovate, usually blunt at the apex and mostly less than 2 in. long. Panicle broader and less dense. Described by de Candolle from a specimen in Lambert’s herbarium, collected during Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China in 1793. Wilson later found it in W. Hupeh and W. Szechwan, where it grows 6 to 12 ft high. The privet described by Carrière as L. chinense var. nanum is probably a dwarf form of this variety.

'Variegatum'

Leaves variegated grey-green and white.

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