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Olea europaea 'Wilson Fruitless' (Wilson Fruitless Olive) - This is an evergreen tree with spreading habit to 25 feet tall by as wide with narrow gray green 2 inch long leaves that are 1/2 to 3/4 inches wide. This variety produces little if any mature fruit as flowers and young fruit usually abscise before maturing.
Plant in full sun in a well-drained soil. It is heat and drought tolerant once established and tolerant to temperatures down to around 15 degrees F without damage - older trees are more cold tolerant with some tip die back. With its near fruitless nature this is a great landscape plant and with its open structure and narrow leaves it has an airier feeling than other olives.
Olea europaea 'Wilson' is an older non-fruiting cultivar of Olea europaea that was discovered by Richard Wilson in 1962 as a seedling from a Olea europaea 'Manzanillo' that was growing on his Glendora, California property. It received US Plant Patent PP4,464 in 1979 (since expired) under the name "Fruitless Olive Tree". Technically this means that this tree should be listed as Olea europaea 'Fruitless Olive Tree', but it is commonly marketed using Wilson's name as Olea europaea 'Wilson' or Olea europaea 'Wilson Fruitless' such is how we list this plant that we have grown for many years. Some however use the illegitimate Latinized cultivar name 'Wilsonii', which has not been allowed by international rules of nomenclature since 1959. It is important to include Wilson in the cultivar name because of the existence of another fruitless olive cultivar that was patented by UC Davis in 1972, also using the name "Fruitless Olive Tree" (PP3,197) but this other plant has long been marketed as the Swan Hill Olive. The Wilson Olive has narrower, thicker and grayer leaves than 'Manzanillo' and Swan Hill Fruitless Olive has the greenest and broadest leaves of them all. For more information about Olea europaea see our listing for Olea europaea Manzanillo'.
The information displayed on this page about Olea europaea 'Wilson Fruitless' (Standard) is based on the research we conducted about it in our nursery horticultural library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include some of our own observations made about this plant as it grows in the nursery gardens and other gardens that we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we have received from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information that will aid others to better grow it.
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