Looks like Olea europea.

Here is a link that might be useful: Olea europea

oh... my... god...
It's an Olive tree... traditional, European olive tree...
Olea europea sounds so innocent!

That explains why I haven't seen them blossom yet; none of them are even *close* to maturity... not even close to burying our yard in endless olives...

Thank you for the warning!!

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Interesting side note...
Cal-IPC (Invasive Plant Council) actually lists this plant as a potential invasive species (Limited rating), due to tendency to spread into wild areas in California. I guess I can confirm that tendency, considering how many of them have been naturally planted in our yards!

This post was edited by gorlash on Sun, Dec 9, 12 at 9:55

I thought of that but didn't think it was the same. You can check by comparing with known olives in the vicinity. Otherwise I wonder if it is a native or naturalized shrub that came in from undeveloped land nearby somewhere.

If there is any.

There's a very old olive tree, a couple of doors down; it grows about 30 feet tall, and is exceedingly prolific with its fruit; our neighbor has wanted to remove it for years, but it's on the property line, and the other owner who shares the line refused to pay to take it out. Given all the jays, crows and squirrels that we have around here, it's likely that this tree is the parent of all these new plants.

I was thinking of letting one of the back yard plants grow for awhile, because it's very pretty until it starts seeding. However, Cal-IPC and others warn about copious resprouting, and difficulty eliminating the plant once and for all, so I just took them all down now...

Online photos show some young olive plants with the same features as yours had, including shoots with the same surface texturing and angles.