European privet (Invasive Plants of Pittsburgh)

European privet

Ligustrum vulgare

Summary ⁷

Ligustrum vulgare (Wild Privet, also sometimes known as Common Privet or European Privet), is a species of Ligustrum native to central and southern Europe, north Africa and southwestern Asia, from southern England and southwestern Sweden south to Morocco, and east to Poland and northwestern Iran.

Description and biology ⁸

Plant: deciduous or semi-evergreen shrubs that grow from 8-20 ft. tall; trunks with multiple stems with long leafy branches; the presence or absence of hairs and type of hairs on stems is helpful in distinguishing species.
Leaves: opposite, simple, entire, short-stalked, ranging in length from 1-3 in. and varying in shape from oval, elliptic to oblong.
Flowers, fruits and seeds: flowers small, white and tubular with four petals and occur in clusters at branch tips; fragrant; late spring to early summer (May to July); length of corolla tube length ranges from 1/10 in. (Chinese) to ¼ in. (border); anthers exceed the corolla lobes (Chinese and California); fruit is small black to blue-black oval to spherical drupe (i.e., a fleshy fruit with 1-several stony seeds inside), mature late summer to fall.
Spreads: by birds that consume fruits and excrete seeds undamaged in new locations; can spread locally through root sprouting.