Privet - Small-leaf
NOXIOUS WEED: Class 4
Ligustrum sinense
family: OLEACEAE
Description
- Also known as Chinese Privet and Hedge Privet: a much-branched, hardy, evergreen, fast-growing shrub to 4m from Asia, formerly used extensively for hedging.
- Leaves are oval with a pointed tip, to 6cm long, and often have a wavy margin.
- Masses of heavily-scented tiny white tubular flowers occur in drooping sprays in spring; they are highly allergenic.
- Sprays of small round blue-black berries persist into winter.
Dispersal
One plant may produce up to a million seeds, which are spread into bushland by birds, and are also washed down waterways. Small-leaf Privet seedlings grow like a carpet in creekline silt deposits.
Impact on Bushland
Seeks out the more fertile soils of gullies, creeklines and rainforest edges, and watercourses affected by urban runoff; shades out native plants, transforms the habitat into one dominated by weeds.
Distribution
Throughout the Blue Mountains.
Alternative Planting
Native Plants
watercourses:
Long-leaved Lomatia
(Lomatia myricoides)
Water Gum (Tristania neriifolia)
Swamp Baeckia (Baeckia linifolia)
hedging:
Lillypilly (Acmena smithii)
Woolly Tea Tree
(Leptospermum grandifolium)
Exotic alternatives
Rondeletia (Rondeletia strigosa)
May Bush (Spiraea cantoniensis)
Control
Check first for nests and dreys. Every stem must be poisoned by cutting and painting. Do not leave woody material lying on the ground. Pull seedlings by hand. Contact BMCC before removing from watercourses or steep land.
Privet – small-leaf is a Class 4 Noxious Weed.
Characteristics
Class 4 noxious weeds are plants that pose a threat to primary production, the
environment or human health, are widely distributed in an area to which the order
applies and are likely to spread in the area or to another area.
Control objective
Minimise the negative impact of those plants on the economy, community or environment of NSW.
Control action
The growth and spread of the plant must be controlled according to the measures
specified in a management plan published by the local control authority, and the plant
may not be sold, propagated or knowingly distributed.
— NSW Noxious Weeds Act of 1993
In the darkness under mature plants a carpet of Small-leaf Privet seedlings thrives.
Small-leaf Privet grows rapidly to 4m, producing masses of white flowers in long drooping sprays in spring.
Tiny white tubular flowers are heavily scented, producing allergic reactions in many people.
Berries are small and succulent, and spread by both native and exotic birds.
A silvereye with a small-leaved privet (Ligustrum sinense) fruit.
photo: © Nevil Lazarus
Small-leaf Privet seeks out creeklines and sensitive moist forest.
