The olive family is a family of
flowering plants known to botanists as the Oleaceae. The Oleaceae
have about 25 genera and over 500 species. Most species are native
to temperate and tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
- Habit: Trees or woody shrubs or
undershrubs sometimes scandent or twining.
- Root: Tap and branched.
- Stem: Woody, erect or twining,
branched.
- Leaf: Simple or compound pinnately
opposite exstipulate, alternate in Jasminium humile; entire,
unicostate reticulate venation.
- Flowers: are most often bisexual
and actinomorphic, occurring in racemes or panicles, and often
fragrant. The calyx and corolla, when present, are gamosepalous and
gamopetalous, respectively, their lobes connate, at least at the
base.
- Fruit: Variable-capsule, samara,
berry or drupe.
- Seed: Endospermic and oily.
- Pollination: Entomophilous