Look Out for Wild Privet in the Touraine Loire Valley

 Privet Ligustrum vulgare (Fr. Troène).

Privet is a shrub with aromatic white flowers and glossy black berries that is used extensively as an ornemental, and particularly in hedges, as it will tolerate being cut multiple times a year. If left to grow naturally it can reach 5 metres in height.

 

 

Some people are allergic to the pollen and the leaves and berries are toxic.

 

It has lots of names in French: bois puant, bois-noir, buis de Vierge, frésillon, herbe à l'encre, raisin-de-chien, truflier et verzelle.

 

 

It is the caterpillar food plant for the Privet Hawk Moth.

 

The flowers, produced in May and June if the plant is not cut, are rich in pollen and nectar, and are an important source of food for hover flies.

 

The berries are so bitter and unpleasant tasting that even the birds avoid them. Usually they dehydrate over winter and fall to the ground with their seeds the following spring.

 

Cultivated privets tend to keep their leaves over winter, due presumably to 18C gardeners selecting for this character.

 

Worldwide there are about 50 species of privet, but L. vulgare is the only one native to Europe, and it can be found wild throughout France up to 1200 metres above sea level. It should not be confused with the Japanese species L. ovalifolium, which is increasingly used in cultivation.

 

It will tolerate some shade but really it is a sun lover, growing on woodland edges, forest clearings and hedges, on rich calcareous cool damp soil. It can survive very low temperatures, down to -17C.

 

The long arching new growth can be used in basket weaving and fresh prunings can be chipped and used as mulch. The wood is white, tight grained and heavy. It can be turned to make knife handles, bobbins and balusters. In the past it was used to make vine stakes and charcoal for canon gunpowder.

The bark will make a yellow dye and the berries a purpley black ink which was used by illuminators. Furniture makers used the ink to darken pale wood to make it seem more exotic. Despite their toxicity the berries were used to improve the colour of wine, although care had to be taken not to spoil the flavour! An oil which burns well can be extracted from the seeds.

 

Privet is closely related to lilac, and can be used as rootstock for grafted lilac varieties.

 

The leaves and flowers were used to make a decoction to treat mouth ulcers.

 

The ingestion of just a few berries (maybe a dozen) is enough to induce vomiting and diarhoea for 48 hours.