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Nesiota elliptica
Also called St Helena olive
The Saint Helena olive (Nesiota elliptica) is an extinct species, the only member of its genus, once native to cloud forest on Saint Helena. It is not a true olive but a member of the buckthorn family, and the last individuals died in the 1990s and 2003, so it cannot be grown today.
The Saint Helena olive (Nesiota elliptica) is an extinct species of flowering plant. It is the only member of the genus Nesiota. It was endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. Despite its name, it is unrelated to the true olive (Olea europaea), but is instead a member of the family Rhamnaceae, the family which contains buckthorns and jujube. The last remaining tree in the wild died in 1994, and the last remaining individual in cultivation died in December 2003, despite conservation efforts. It is thus a prime example of recent plant extinction. The Saint Helena olive belongs to the tribe Phyliceae, which are mostly endemic to Southern Africa.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Saint Helena olive by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
