Devil wood (Osmanthus americanus) is a native small tree or shrub in the Oleaceae and is in the same genus as the widely cultivated sweet olive (Osmanthus fragrans). It is also known as American Wild Olive and can also have the scientific name of Cartrema americana. The common name devilwood is traced to the difficulty of working with the wood. The bark is gray to reddish brown and breaking into small scales with age. The twigs are slender, reddish to brown to gray, pubescent to glabrous, and slightly angled or terete. The pith is white and homogenous. The leaves are opposite, simple, evergreen, and with pinnate major veins. The blades are leathery, thick, elliptic, oblong-elliptic or lanceolate, 2-6" long, 1-2.5" wide, upper surface bright green, glabrous and shiny, and paler below. The BRF’s are the inrolled margin (revolute) of the evergreen opposite leaves. The flowers are small, greenish to creamy white in axillary panicles on twigs of the previous season. It flowers in early Spring. The fruits are dark blue drupes 2.5-4" long, 0.25-1" diameter, with a solitary seed. The wood is dark brown to reddish brown, sapwood lighter, close-grained, hard, strong, specific gravity 0.81, and difficult to work. One of the plants whose natural range is restricted to the parishes east of the Mississippi River. Two trees planted on Allen Acres and a large one is planted at the Arboretum (old site) north of Ville Platte and others planted outside ot eh original range which seems to be St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, and Washington. Might also occur naturally in Livingston Parish. A second species of Osmanthus is fragrans, the famous sweet olive, a non-native shrub.