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Osmanthus fragrans - Fragrant olive

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Created page with "thumb|right|''Osmanthus fragrans'', ''Fragrant olive'' '''Fragrant olive''' variously known as '''sweet osmanthus, sweet oliv..."
[[File:Osmanthus fragrans (orange flowers).jpg|thumb|right|''Osmanthus fragrans'', ''Fragrant olive'']]

'''Fragrant olive''' variously known as '''sweet osmanthus, sweet olive, tea olive, and Osmanthus fragrans,''' is a species native to Asia from the Himalayas through southern China (Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan) to Taiwan and southern Japan and southeast Asia as far south as Cambodia and Thailand.<ref name="int"/><ref name="int2"/>

== Description ==

It is an evergreen shrub or small tree growing to 3–12 m tall. The leaves are 7–15 cm long and 2.6–5 cm broad, with an entire or finely toothed margin. The flowers are white, pale yellow, yellow, or orange-yellow, small (1 cm long), with a four-lobed corolla 5 mm diameter, and have a strong fragrance; they are produced in small clusters in the late summer and autumn. The fruit is a purple-black drupe 10–15 mm long containing a single hard-shelled seed; it is mature in the spring about six months after flowering.

== Uses ==

*In Chinese cuisine, its flowers may be infused with green or black tea leaves to create a scented tea. The flowers are also used to produce osmanthus-scented jam, sweet cakes, dumplings, soups, and liquor.
*In traditional Chinese medicine, osmanthus tea has been used as an herbal tea for the treatment of irregular menstruation.
* The extract of dried flowers showed neuroprotective, free-radical scavenging, antioxidative effects in in vitro assays.

== References ==

<references>
<ref name="int">[http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=210001392 Flora of China: Osmanthus fragrans]</ref>
<ref name="int2">[http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do?name_id=354988 Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, Osmanthus fragrans]</ref>
</references>

== External Links ==

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmanthus_fragrans Osmanthus fragrans - Wikipedia]

[[Category:Herbs]]

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