Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)

Taxonomy

Domain	Eukarya
Kingdom	Plantae
Phylum	Magnoliophyta
Class	Magnoliopsida
Superorder	Rosanae
Order	Rosales
Family	Elaeagnaceae
Genus	Elaeagnus

Scientific Name

Elaeagnus umbellata

Scientific Name Synonyms

Elaeagnus umbellata var. parvifolia

Common Name

autumn olive

Miller, J.H., E.B, Chambliss, N.J. Loewenstein. 2010. A Field Guide for the Identification of Invasive Plants in Southern Forests. General Technical Report SRS-119. Asheville, NC. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 126 p.

Plant

Tardily deciduous, bushy and leafy shrub, 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 m) in height, with scattered thorny branches. Leaves silver scaly beneath, with many red berries in fall.

Stem

Twigs slender and silver scaly, spur twigs common, with some lateral twigs becoming pointed, like thorns. Branches and main stems glossy and gray green with scattered thorns and many whitish dots (lenticels), becoming light gray to gray brown with age and eventually fissuring to expose light-brown inner bark.

Leaves

Alternate, elliptic, 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) long and 0.8 to 1.2 inches (2 to 3 cm) wide. Margins entire and wavy. Bright green to gray green above with silver scaly midvein and densely silver scaly beneath. Petioles short and silvery.

Flowers

February to June. Axillary clusters, each with 5 to 10 tubular flowers with 4 lobes. Silvery white to yellow. Fragrant.

Fruit and seeds

August to November. Round, juicy drupe 0.3 to 0.4 inch (8 to 10 mm) wide containing 1 nutlet. Red and finely doted with silvery to silvery-brown scales.

Ecology

Prefers drier sites. Shade tolerant. Spreads by animal-dispersed seeds and found as scattered plants in forest openings and open forests, eventually forming dense stands. A nonleguminous nitrogen fixer.

Resembles

silverthorn or thorny olive (E. pungens Thunb.) and Russian olive (E. angustifolia L.). Silverthorn is an evergreen that has brown scaly and hairy twigs, flowers in late fall, and oval reddish-silver, scaly drupes in spring. Russian olive rarely occurs and has silver scaly twigs and leaves, leaves longer and more linear, flowers in early summer, and many yellow olives in fall and winter. Also resembles plum (Prunus spp.) when fruit is present, although plum leaves are not silvery beneath and fruit is much larger.

History and use

Introduced from China and Japan in 1830. Planted for wildlife food and surface-mine reclamation.

Distribution

Found throughout the region with dense infestations more frequent in VA, KY, SC, and GA.

Management strategies

Do not plant. Remove prior plantings, and control sprouts and seedlings. Bag and dispose of fruit in a dumpster or burn.
Treat when new plants are young to prevent seed formation.
Cut and bulldoze when fruit are not present.
Minimize disturbance within miles of where this plant occurs, and anticipate wider occupation when plants are present before disturbance.
Cutting and basal treatments are hindered by multiple thorny sprouts and eye protection should be used.
Manually pull new seedlings and tree wrench saplings when soil is moist, ensuring removal of all roots.
Burning treatments are suspected of having minimal topkill effect due to scant litter.
Autumn olive seedlings are readily eaten by goats and sheep. Goats can deaden saplings by striping the bark and bending them over to eat the foliage.

Recommended control procedures

Thoroughly wet all leaves with Arsenal AC* or Vanquish* as a 1-percent solution in water (4 ounces per 3-gallon mix) with a surfactant (April to October). Or when safety to surrounding vegetation is desired, use Garlon 3A as a 2 percent solution (8 ounces per 3-gallon mix).
For stems too tall for foliar sprays, apply (January to February or May to October) a basal spray using Garlon 4 as a 20-percent solution (5 pints per 3-gallon mix) in a labeled basal oil product, vegetable oil or mineral oil with a penetrant, or fuel oil or diesel fuel (where permitted), or undiluted Pathfinder II when safety to surrounding vegetation is desired. Elsewhere, apply Stalker* as a 6-percent solution (1.5 pints per 3-gallon mix) in a labeled basal oil product, vegetable oil or mineral oil with a penetrant, or fuel oil or diesel fuel (where permitted) to young stems. Or cut larger stems and immediately treat the stump tops with one of the following herbicides in water with a surfactant: Arsenal AC* as a 5-percent solution (20 ounces per 3-gallon mix); or when safety to surrounding vegetation is desired, a glyphosate herbicide as a 20-percent solution (5 pints per 3-gallon mix). ORTHO Brush-B-Gon, Enforcer Brush Killer, and Vine-X are effective undiluted for treating cut-stumps and available in retail garden stores (safe to surrounding plants).

* Nontarget plants may be killed or injured by root uptake.

Images

April	April	April
October	April	December	December

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