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Before St. Helena olive became extinct, a sample of its genetic material (DNA) was collected for storage in Kew's DNA bank, so that it is still available for research.
Despite its common name, St Helena olive does not belong to the same plant family as the well-known Mediterranean olive (Olea europaea) which is in Oleaceae.
*A stout, shrubby tree, St. Helena Olive (Nesiota elliptica) is the only species that is what it is not, so that the genus also disappeared with the extinction of the species in 2003. It was one of 5l flowering plant species that only occur naturally on the South Atlantic ocean island of Helena
Common Name: Saint Helene Olive
Scientific Name: Nesiota Elliptica
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Rhamnales
Family: Rhamnaceace
The olive was large but low bearing tree. The wood was '"dark coloured, hard and very useful." The leaves were thick, rounded, and curled outward at the edges. The flowers had pink petals. The fruits were hard, woody capsules that split when matured: When split it exposed the triangular black seeds.
*Trees were most commonly 5m tall
*With a trunk diameter of about 4m.
*The leaves were approximately 50-70mm in length
*The flowers were about 10mm in danger
*It grew only in the island of St. Helena
*It was 99% Self Incompatible
*It was cut for Farmland and Timber
*It was the only member of its genus
*It has no close relatives
*The last tree was owned by George Benjamin (pictured above)
In 1850 John Charles Melliss recorded 12 to 15 trees growing off the northern side of Diana's Peak. It was thought to extinct after a while until 1977. The last plant in the wild died in 1994. The last remaining plant in cultivation died in 2003