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Support the Flora of the Southeastern US

2024 has been a banner year for making the best flora we can imagine. We've created:
With financial support from people like you, we are aiming even higher in 2025. Together we can accomplish all this: Vote on our 2025 priorities
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Click the number at the start of a key lead to highlight both that lead and its corresponding lead. Click again to show only the two highlighted leads. Click a third time to return to the full key with the selected leads still highlighted.

Key to Oleaceae

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1 Herbs or suffruticose, < 0.9 dm tall
1 Trees and shrubs, nearly always > 10 dm tall.
  2 Leaves compound.
    3 Leaves pinnately compound with > 5 leaflets; petals absent; fruit a samara; small to large tree; [tribe Oleeae, subtribe Fraxininae]
    3 Leaves trifoliolate; petals 6-10, yellow, conspicuous; fruit a deeply 2-lobed dryish berry; [tribe Jasmineae]
  2 Leaves simple.
      4 Flowers bright yellow, showy; fruit a many-seeded capsule; [tribe Forsythieae]
      4 Flowers white, lilac, or purplish; fruit a drupe or 4-seeded capsule.
        5 Leaves cordate or truncate at the base; fruit a 4-seeded capsule; corolla lobes shorter than the tube; flowers lilac or white, in terminal panicles; [tribe Oleeae, subtribe Ligustrinae]
        5 Leaves cuneate to rounded at the base; fruit a drupe; corolla lobes either shorter or longer than the tube; flowers white or greenish-white, in terminal or lateral panicles or fascicles.
          6 Corolla absent; calyx minute or lacking; flowers in axillary fascicles; [tribe Oleeae, subtribe Oleinae]
          6 Corolla present (often conspicuous and showy); calyx present; flowers in lateral or terminal panicles or in terminal subumbellate clusters.
             7 Corolla lobes 5-12; flowers in terminal subumbellate clusters; [tribe Jasmineae]
             7 Corolla lobes 4; flowers in axillary or terminal panicles or axillary fascicles.
               8 Corolla lobes elongate, much longer than the corolla tube; [tribe Oleeae, subtribe Oleinae]
               8 Corolla lobes short, no longer than the corolla tube.
                 9 Inflorescence a many-flowered terminal panicle; leaves generally ovate, elliptic or lanceolate (widest below or at the middle); [tribe Oleeae, subtribe Ligustrinae]
                 9 Inflorescence a few-flowered axillary panicle or fascicle; leaves generally oblanceolate or obovate (widest above the middle); [tribe Oleeae, subtribe Oleinae].
                   10 Leaf margins entire; leaves usually >7 cm long; inflorescence an axillary panicle (with a central axis); [native tree of Coastal Plain forests]
                   10 Leaf margins on at least some leaves coarsely spinose-serrate; leaves < 10 cm long; inflorescence an axillary fascicle (lacking a central axis); [horticulturally planted, rarely naturalizing]