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Black Olive

Terminalia buceras

Also called Antigua Whitewood, Bullet Tree, Oxhorn Bucida, Geometry Tree, Gregorywood, Gregorywood Tree

In Singapore: Black Olive, Olive-bark Tree (Grown in Singapore)

Black Olive
Photo: Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0

Terminalia buceras is a large tropical tree of the Combretaceae family, native to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and northern South America, usually found in coastal swamps and wet lowland forests. It is grown as a shade and landscape tree where it is warm and moist year round.

Family
Combretaceae (Combret family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Keep the soil consistently moist, especially while young, and water during dry spells.
Soil
Moist, fertile, well-drained loam; tolerates periodically wet soil.
Temperature
20–35 °C; protect from frost and sustained temperatures below 10 °C.
How easy
Moderate
Native range
C. Mexico to Colombia (San Andrés I.), Caribbean
Climate
seasonally dry tropical

About

Terminalia buceras is a tree in the Combretaceae family. It is known by a variety of names in English, including bullet tree, black olive tree, gregorywood (or gregory wood), Antigua whitewood, and oxhorn bucida. It is native to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. It is commonly found in coastal swamps and wet inland forests in low elevations.

Where it grows

The species is native to the Neotropical realm. Countries and regions in which it grows are: Colombia; Panama; Costa Rica; Venezuelan Antilles; Nicaragua; Windward Islands; Honduras; Guatemala; Mexico (Southeast, Southwest, Gulf, Central); Leeward Islands; Belize; Hispaniola (Dominican Republic, Haiti); Jamaica; Puerto Rico; Cuba; Turks-Caicos Islands; Bahamas. It is regarded as introduced in Florida and Trinidad and Tobago.

Other Terminalia plants

Arjun · Terminalia australis · Myrobalan · Terminalia calamansanai · Tropical-almond · Myrobalan · Terminalia dhofarica · Indian Laurel · Kakadu Plum · Ivory Coast almond · Terminalia macroptera · Terminalia mantaly

[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Terminalia buceras 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.

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