Plate 1 figs. a–h · 6 observations
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 6 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.
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.
Native range 6 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| China South-Central | CHC | ASIA-TEMPERATE |
| China Southeast | CHS | |
| Hainan | CHH | |
| Japan | JAP | |
| Korea | KOR | |
| Taiwan | TAI |
Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.
Where it actually grows measured, from 84 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | -1.0 °C | 5.7 °C | 14.5 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 16.8 °C | 24.7 °C | 29.9 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,490 mm | 3,352 mm | 4,860 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 142 mm | 249 mm | 706 mm |
It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 84 research-grade observations of Elaeagnus glabra that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.
This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 14 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 buisanensis Hayata
- Elaeagnus erosifolia Hayata
- Elaeagnus glabra f. oxyphylla (Servett.) W.Lee
- Elaeagnus glabra subsp. crassifolia Servett.
- Elaeagnus glabra subsp. oxyphylla Servett.
- Elaeagnus glabra subsp. tenuiflora (Benth.) Servett.
- Elaeagnus glabra var. cupressa Lecomte
- Elaeagnus glabra var. jotanii Honda
- Elaeagnus glabra var. lanceolata Nakai
- Elaeagnus glabra var. ovalifolia Araki
- Elaeagnus glabra var. oxyphylla (Servett.) Nakai
- Elaeagnus longidrupa Hayata
- Elaeagnus paucilepidota Hayata
- Elaeagnus tenuiflora Benth.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.