Garden Privet - Ligustrum ovalifolium
Shrub 1 to 3 metres tall and densely branched. Leaves broad, oval, smooth, untoothed and short stalked. Flowers white, 4 to 6 mm in dense pyramidal panicles, fragrant. Fruit a berry black when ripe.
Wild Privet is similar, but the leaves are narrower.
Hedgerows, waste ground, waysides and tips.
Flowers June and July.
Evergreen perennial.
Occasional in Leicestershire and Rutland as an escape from cultivation, or occasionally sown by birds, or self sown. . In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 19 of the 617 tetrads.
Graham Calow
Near Croft Road, Cosby
22 February 2016
David Nicholls
Ratcliffe Culey field 217
26 June 2019
HAPeacock
Groby Road Allotments
21 June 2016
David Nicholls
Burroughs Road, Ratby
31 May 2013
Steve Mathers
Plungar Village
26 October 2016
David Nicholls
Ratby
04 February 2016
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Species profile
- Common names
- Garden Privet
- Species group:
- flowering plant
- Kingdom:
- Plantae
- Order:
- Lamiales
- Family:
- Oleaceae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 37
- First record:
- 10/10/2007 (Dave Wood)
- Last record:
- 04/03/2025 (Pugh, Dylan)
Total records by month
% of records within its species group
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Graham Calow
Sapcote, Leicester Road near Telephone Exchange
22 July 2020
David Nicholls
Ratcliffe Culey
22 June 2019
Graham Calow
Near Croft Road, Cosby
22 February 2016
David Nicholls
Hill Hole Quarry NR
11 June 2015
Alan Semper
Melton Town Park, New Park
28 July 2015
Wide leaves
Graham Calow
Battram Road, Battram
12 May 2016
Alan Semper
Melton Town Park, New Park
28 July 2015
Graham Calow
Near High Cross
11 March 2016
berries
steven lewis
Clipsham, Bidwell Lane
06 May 2019
David Nicholls
Ratby, Burroughs Rd
14 January 2021
Steve Mathers
Plungar Village
26 October 2016
AJ Cann
Welford Road Cemetery
12 September 2017
Myzus ligustri
Myzus ligustri sometimes called the Privet Aphid is pale yellow or greenish-yellow. The aphids produce a pseudo-gall by causing the leaves of Garden Privet or Wild Privet distorting the leaves, causing one or both margins to roll downwards. There is often some discolouration of the affected leaves which may have patches of yellow.
Caloptilia cuculipennella
The larva of the moth Caloptilia cuculipennella mines the leaves of Ash and Privet. On Ash, the larva makes a thin silvery gallery mine on the upper leaf surface which causes a slight upward fold of the leaf-edge. It then leaves the mine and feeds inside a cone caused by a double leaf-fold at the tip, eventually pupating inside.
Gracillaria syringella
The larvae of the moth Gracillaria syringella mine the leaves of Lilac, Ash, Privet and Jasmine, often gregariously, in a large blotch mine.