When does autumn olive bloom in New York?

Most often in May. Across 223 dated, research-grade observations of Elaeagnus umbellata in New York, the flowering season runs roughly May.

Peak May In flower 223 Examined 856 State New York

Flowering 223 in flower of 856 examined

28%

72%

30%

Proportion of examined Elaeagnus umbellata in New York in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	42	0%	0% to 8%
Feb	0	9	0%	0% to 30%
Mar	0	18	0%	0% to 18%
Apr	44	158	28%	21% to 35%
May	165	229	72%	66% to 77%
Jun	13	44	30%	18% to 44%
Jul	0	53	0%	0% to 7%
Aug	1	119	1%	0% to 5%
Sep	0	111	0%	0% to 3%
Oct	0	50	0%	0% to 7%
Nov	0	21	0%	0% to 15%
Dec	0	2	too few examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Elaeagnus umbellata in New York observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 223 of 856 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.wt38fd.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a record of when people in New York found Elaeagnus umbellata in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in New York, so it is not the species’ global average dragged onto a map: the same plant flowers on different dates in different places, and that is the entire point of the page.

It will not tell you what your particular plant will do this year. Bloom time moves with the season, with altitude, and with the weather, and a warm February pulls everything forward. We publish the distribution and the sample size, and we refuse to draw a month that too few people examined.

The plant

Elaeagnus umbellata

autumn olive

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in New York. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.