Picconia

Picconia
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Lamiales
Family:	Oleaceae
Tribe:	Oleeae
Genus:	Picconia DC.
Species
See text

Picconia (Picconia) is a genus of two species flowering plants in the family Oleaceae. In the laurel forests habitat, of Macaronesia islands of the eastern North Atlantic.^[1]

Description

They are evergreen shrubs to trees with large, opposite, entire, shiny, ovoid leaves and numerous flowers. The fruit is a drupe. The flowers are small white and fragrant, followed by one-seeded, olive-like green fruit, ripening to bluish-black.^[2] Picconia are native of open spots in the laurel forest of the Canary Islands and Madeira where they are found only in the humid to hyper-humid evergreen forests of the cloud belt.^[3] Tree species with laurel-shaped leaves are predominant, forming a dense canopy up to 40 m high that can be hardly trespassed by light, which results in scant vegetation in the understory.^[4] Most of these tree species in Africa are ancient paleoendemic^[5] species of the genera Laurus, Ocotea, Persea, and Picconia, which in ancient times were widely distributed on the African and European continents.^[6][7]

Species

• Picconia azorica - endemic to the archipelago of the Azores^[8]
• Picconia excelsa - tree up to 15m; Madeira, Canaries

References

Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Picconia.