Friday, September 13, 2002

Russian Olive Revealed
Photo of Russian Olive Photo
Russian Olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia) Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)

Now that the growing season is over, I think I've finally figured out how to tell the difference between Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) and Russian Olive (E. angustifolia). Of course, it's pretty easy right now, since Russian Olive has yellow, mealy fruits, while Autumn Olive has juicy, red fruits (See photos above). If I hadn't recently found a Russian Olive right near campus, I'd probably still be wondering. I'll have to see if I can use the facts that Russian Olive has longer, thinner, more silvery leaves, as well as much more prominent thorns, to tell the two species apart next spring.

2 comments:

Muddy said...

You can't imagine how happy this photo of the Autumn Olive has made me. When I was a child, we used to have one on our ditchbank and we ate the berries - delicious! We just called it "the red berry bush". I've been searching literally almost all my life to identify it. Thank you so much!

I haven't added anything to my blog in a long time, but if you'd let me, I'd love to blog this. Could I please use your photo, with credit to you, of course (as the bush on the ditchbank is long gone)?

In any case, thank you!

Jennifer Forman Orth said...

No problem - the photos I have taken are Creative Commons (non-commercial share-alike) licensed, you can use any of them with a photo credit.