Invasive Chinese Privet
Chinese privet is an evergreen shrub that is aggressive and troublesome, spreading easily and crowding out native plants. It often forms dense thickets, particularly in bottom-land forests and along fencerows, thus gaining access to forests, fields, and right-of-ways. Being shade tolerant, it can invade forest interiors as well. It colonizes by root sprouts and is spread widely by abundant bird- and other animal-dispersed seeds.
Chinese privet has distinctive spreading branches. It is a “small-leaf” privet, with leaf blades up to 2 inches long. Leaves are opposite with short petioles, ovate to elliptic, usually rounded at the tip, sometimes with a small notch, tapering to the base, and with smooth margins. It produces abundant white, fragrant flowers, about 3/8 inch wide, borne in narrow clusters up to 4 inches long, and appearing from March to May. Its fruit are berrylike, bluish black, 1/4 inch long by 3/16 inch wide, in clusters that bend down the branchlets bearing them, and hanging on into winter.
Chinese privet was introduced into the United States in 1852 as an ornamental.
Click here for more information from TexasInvasives.org
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