Ligustrum lucidum glossy privet

Ligustrum lucidum northeast of the Mausoleum. Sairus Patel, 24 Jun 2019

From: Howard E. McMinn & Evelyn Maino, An Illustrated Manual of Pacific Coast Trees

The only locally grown privet to form a stately tree, glossy privet bears lustrous evergreen leaves in pairs (lucidum is Latin for shining or bright) and, in July, produces shapely panicles of tiny white odoriferous flowers that emerge evenly spread across its dome-shaped crown. Clusters of blue-black oblong fruit follow; the plant is mildly weedy. In China, it has long been used as a host for wax insects to produce white wax for candles, polishes, and coatings for food and pills.

The floral effect is unmistakable and can be discerned even in old, grainy photographs of the Inner Quad circles, in which it has been planted at least from the 1950s into the early 2000s when the last specimen was removed from the inner southwest island. Growing next to it, a pair of slender, closely spaced trunks was thought to belong to a privet of a different species but is in fact sweet viburnum (Viburnum odoratissimum).

Several privets, almost certainly including this one, were among the species recommended by John McLaren to Frederick Law Olmsted in 1887 for use on campus. Gardener Thomas Douglas subsequently propagated untold numbers by cuttings.

Glossy privet was planted as the street tree on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto in the 1950s; in the 1970s what remained were replaced by London planes. An old-timey tree that is not planted anymore, it can still be found on campus along Alvarado Row near Esplanada Way and lining much of Cedro Way. Dozens encircle Abrams and Barnes halls in Escondido Village. A specimen grows northeast of the Mausoleum.

Name derivation: Ligustrum – Latin ligulare, to tie, in reference to the use made of the flexible shoots; lucidum – see text above.