Elaeagnus angustifoliaL.

Russian olive

WFO wfo-0000663664 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Elaeagnus angustifolia, photographed by Randal
fig. a Randal, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-24 / obs. 200850362
Elaeagnus angustifolia, photographed by Carol Ann Vermeer
fig. b Carol Ann Vermeer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204860874
Elaeagnus angustifolia, photographed by Svyatoslav Knyazev
fig. c Svyatoslav Knyazev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203452485
Elaeagnus angustifolia, photographed by ll r Ирина
fig. d ll r Ирина, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205804474
Elaeagnus angustifolia, photographed by Robert Webster
fig. e Robert Webster, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 198538373
Elaeagnus angustifolia, photographed by Henrik Kibak
fig. f Henrik Kibak, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200419983
Elaeagnus angustifolia, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. g Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200789609
Elaeagnus angustifolia, photographed by Liubov Ilminska
fig. h Liubov Ilminska, CC0 1.0 / obs. 199272498

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 541 observations

Peak flowering in Jun, from 541 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 43 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Elaeagnus angustifolia subsp. orientalis (L.) Soják
  • Elaeagnus angustifolia var. angustifolia
  • Elaeagnus angustifolia var. biebersteiniana Kuntze
  • Elaeagnus angustifolia var. caspica Sosn.
  • Elaeagnus angustifolia var. iliensis Musch.
  • Elaeagnus angustifolia var. normalis Kuntze
  • Elaeagnus angustifolia var. orientalis (L.) Kuntze
  • Elaeagnus angustifolia var. spinosa (L.) Kuntze
  • Elaeagnus angustifolia var. turcica Yıld.
  • Elaeagnus argentea Moench
  • Elaeagnus caspica (Sosn.) Grossh.
  • Elaeagnus dactyliformis Schltdl.
  • Elaeagnus erivanensis Fisch. ex Schltdl.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis M.Bieb.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis subsp. continentalis Servett.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis subsp. littoralis Servett.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis subsp. moorcroftii (Wall. ex Schltdl.) Servett.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis subsp. songarica (Bernh. ex Schltdl.) Servett.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis subsp. songorica (Bernh. ex Schltdl.) Servett.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis var. dactyliformis Loudon
  • Elaeagnus hortensis var. igda Servett.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis var. microcarpa Servett.
  • Elaeagnus hortensis var. orientalis (L.) Loudon
  • Elaeagnus hortensis var. songarica Bernh. ex Schltdl.

and 19 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.