Urban areas may function as propagule sources for glossy privet because it has been used as a landscaping tree for over a century.
Things sparkle less, cars lose their glossy finish, trees sway lifelessly, and you are left with a strange shell of the life you once knew.
Long tendrils of glossy-leafed pothos vines snaked across my dresser, and a 5-foot-tall yucca tree bent over the foot of my bed toward the window.
Not since the deep freezes of the 1970s has so much damage been seen in these striking, glossy-leafed trees, native to the lowlands of the South.
My first dusk in Havana I spent walking the Paseo, a boulevard whose promenade was shaded with old glossy-leaved trees and lined with park benches.
In central Argentina, the Chinese tree glossy privet (Ligustrum lucidum) is an aggressive invasive species replacing native forests, forming dense stands, and is thus a major conservation concern.
A pipe organ cactus made a handy rack for drying socks, and a glossy-leafed lemon tree shaded a small table and chairs.
Even though the residence, built from 1909 to 1911, verges on pretension, with an elaborate loggia and grandiose terrace, the magnificent plantings -- giant coral trees afire in orange flowers, a Moreton Bay chestnut from Australia, a glossy-leafed flame tree and graceful English oaks -- help to balance the ambitious proportions.
The stupendous "Gallery of Hercules," with its paintings by Charles Le Brun, who also worked at Versailles, is dark with smoke and age; restorers have cleaned small sample sections, suddenly revealing the glossy leaves of a holly tree.
How to recognise them: Glossy green leaves on tree with abundant and richly scented white blossom.
