Plants usually trees, sometimes shrubs, 1-30 m tall; young stems glabrous, more or less terete. Leaves coriaceous, glabrous; petioles 5-10(-15 mm long; blades very variable, narrowly elliptic to oblong elliptic, somewhat ovate. or slightly obovate, 3-11 cm long. 1.5-5 cm wide, venation usually obscure, sometimes 5 or 6 primary veins slightly raised on each side off the midribs, bases scute, attenuate into the petioles, margins slightly revolute, often somewhat undulate, tips acute to obtuse to somewhat acuminate, mucronulate. Inflorescences terminal, cymose paniculate, glabrous. Calyces cupulate, about 1 mm long, with triangular lobes 0.5-0.8 mm long; corollas white; corollas tubes about 1 mm long; corolla lobes 2-2.5 mm long, margins slightly involute, tips mucronulate; stamens ellipsoid, 2 mm lgong; ovaries flask-shaped, about 1.5 mm long, including the style. Drupes subglobose to ellipsoid, 0.5-2 mm long, 0.4-1 cm wide.
Olea capensis is native to tropical and southern Africa, Comoros, and Madagascar.
