Olea and Olearia - Notes on the Best Shrubs and Trees

Olea - Notes

Olive. The species europaea is the wild Olive, which is cultivated for its oil. It is a shrub growing up to six feet high, with white flowers in July. In northern climes it should have a warm, sheltered place. Fragrans is the same as Osmanthus fragrans. Peat and loam.

Olearia - Notes

Handsome evergreens, of which the best known are stellulata (syn. Eurybia Gunniana), height up to four feet, white flowers in late spring or early summer, a very beautiful but not hardy shrub (Olearia Gunnii or Gunniana of gardens is the same); and Haastii, three to four feet, white, very free, late summer, the hardiest, if cut by frost breaks up again rapidly. Others are angustifolia, white, sweet; argophylla, white, woolly, musk-scented leaves; dentata, white, yellow centre, not hardy; Forsteri, white, summer, not quite hardy; insignis, white, yellow centre, not hardy; macrodonta, silvery leaves, white fragrant flowers; nearly hardy; nummulariaefolia, cream flowers and thick stemless leaves, nearly hardy; and Chathamica which was exhibited by a Cornish amateur, the Rev. A. T. Boscawen, in London in 1913, when it received a Botanical Certificate from the Royal Horticultural Society; the leaves are lanceolate, dull green, downy below; the flowers single, soft lilac, about two inches across. The less hardy Olearias may be grown on wall borders. Ordinary soil.

Fig. Sprays of the Star-Bush. Olearia stellata. Photo by R. A. Malby.

Fig. An uncommon Star-Bush. Olearia macrosepala. Photo by R. A. Malby.