''Chionanthus ramiflorus'' (syn. ''Linociera ramiflora'' (Roxb.) Wall.), commonly known as northern olive or native olive, is a species of shrubs and trees, of the flowering plant family Oleaceae. They grow naturally in India, Nepal, northeastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

( Queensland), New Guinea, the Philippines, southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and Taiwan. They grow as evergreen shrubs or trees to tall. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are long and broad, simple ovate to oblong-elliptic, with a petiole. The flowers are white or yellow, produced in

panicle A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are of ...

s long. The fruit is a blue-black

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...

long and diameter. Sometimes the species is treated in the segregate genus ''Linociera'', though this does not differ from ''Chionanthus'' in any character other than leaf persistence, not a taxonomically significant character. The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia' records that "The fruit of this plant is the food of the jagged-tailed bower-bird (Preonodura Neivtoniana). (Bailey.) This observation is interesting, and is the more valuable in that the vegetable foods of our indigenous fauna have very rarely been botanically determined. This plant is not endemic to Australia. Queensland."

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* {{Taxonbar, from=Q5101416 ramiflorus Flora of tropical Asia Flora of China Flora of Queensland Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN Lamiales of Asia