Species
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Elaeagnus pungens Thunb.

Spiny Oleaster, Spiny Oleaster (EN), Stechende Ölweide (DE), Thorny Elaeagnus

Climate known 90 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Elaeagnus pungens is a species of flowering plant in the family Elaeagnaceae, known by the common names thorny olive, spiny oleaster and silverthorn; also by the family name "oleaster". It is native to Asia, including China and Japan. It is present in the southeastern United States as an introduced species, a common landscaping and ornamental plant, and sometimes an invasive species.

Text from Wikipedia, “Elaeagnus pungens”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Elaeagnus

Elaeagnus is a genus of about 90 species of flowering plants in the family Elaeagnaceae. Species of the genus are commonly known as silverberry or oleaster.

Text from Wikipedia, “Elaeagnus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Elaeagnaceae
Described by
Thunb.
Native to
Tadzhikistan, China South-Central, China Southeast +2
Wild records
377 in range· 279 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Aug, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1767mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 255 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–34DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, March to September in the northern hemisphere (March to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1767 mm a year, wettest June at 255 mm, driest December at 54 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -7.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Elaeagnus frederici-variegata Ilsemann; Elaeagnus obtusa C.Y.Chang; Elaeagnus pugens Thunb.; Elaeagnus pungens f. angustifolia (Araki) Sugim.; Elaeagnus pungens f. aurea (Servett.) Rehder and 23 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, March to September in the northern hemisphere (March to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1352 mm of 1767 mm) falls in March to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 20.5 °C against a yearly mean of 16.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to March.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1767 mm a year, wettest June at 255 mm, driest December at 54 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1767 mm a year at the habitat, 1352 mm of it March to September. Wettest month June at 255 mm, driest December at 54 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1295 mm to 2687 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 34 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 14, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -7.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -7.3 °C, the absolute minimum -13.6 °C, about 49 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 30.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 1.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells -2.9 °C to 6.2 °C), warmest day 29.2 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -7.3 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 66% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 8 °C in Jan to 29 °C in Aug; mean night from 1 °C in Jan to 24 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1767 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 324 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -13.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 30.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost30.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-13.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 16–34RH 59–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 324 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C8 / 4–1210 / 6–1213 / 10–1618 / 15–2222 / 19–2625 / 23–2928 / 26–3229 / 27–3226 / 24–2821 / 18–2416 / 13–1911 / 7–14
Night °C1 / -3–62 / -2–76 / 1–1011 / 6–1416 / 11–1920 / 16–2323 / 20–2524 / 20–2520 / 17–2314 / 10–199 / 4–143 / -1–9
Rain mm68 / 40–10387 / 50–133146 / 81–213154 / 101–252195 / 123–284255 / 167–425230 / 151–361175 / 124–310197 / 87–352117 / 68–21989 / 57–14454 / 31–86
DLI17 / 14–1921 / 16–2326 / 19–2832 / 23–3434 / 28–3631 / 28–3433 / 30–3633 / 30–3527 / 24–2923 / 19–2418 / 16–1916 / 14–18
RH %59 / 54–6359 / 55–6459 / 56–6459 / 57–6462 / 59–6565 / 62–6866 / 62–7065 / 62–6863 / 61–6660 / 58–6359 / 56–6259 / 55–62

Each figure is the median across the 324 grid cells holding the 361 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1286:5964 (25.675, 118.225). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -13.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -7.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 30.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 324 distinct grid cells holding the 361 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1286:5964 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 25.50_118.125, lapse-corrected +576 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1213 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeTadzhikistan, China South-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea· introduced: Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Mauritius, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, District of Columbia
Kew's description“shrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker34.696, 134.265 · in the densest population, 118 records (31% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 377 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 279 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 1352 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 16 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 377 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Elaeagnus pungensElaeagnus pungensElaeagnus pungensElaeagnus pungensElaeagnus pungensElaeagnus pungensElaeagnus pungensElaeagnus pungens

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) Emily Summerbell, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Elaeagnus pungens, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Associated with Tree Species in a Planted Forest of Eastern China
Jinping Wang, G. Geoff Wang, Bo Zhang, Zhongming Yuan (2019) · Forests
Cyclic Microirrigation in Container-grown Landscape Plants Improves Plant Growth and Water Conservation
Richard C. Beeson, John J. Haydu (1995) · Journal of Environmental Horticulture
Typical Frankia infect actinorhizal plants exotic to New Zealand
Michael L. Clawson, David R. Benson, Steven C. Resch, David W. Stephens (1997) · New Zealand Journal of Botany
Immuno-Gold Localization of Nitrogenase in Root Nodules of Elaeagnus pungens Thunb
Hideo Sasakawa, Toru Hiyoshi, Tatsuo Sugiyama (1988) · Plant and Cell Physiology
Two new flavonol glycosides from the leaves ofElaeagnus pungens
Yuebin Ge, Mengshun Li, Zhinan Mei, Guangzhong Yang (2013) · Journal of Asian Natural Products Research
Optimization of Pulsed Electric-Field-Based Total Polyphenols’ Extraction from Elaeagnus pungens ‘Limelight’ Leaves Using Hydroethanolic Mixtures
Vasileios M. Pappas, Dimitrios Palaiogiannis, Vassilis Athanasiadis, Theodoros Chatzimitakos (2022) · Oxygen
Boron Tolerance of Twenty-five Ornamental Shrub Species1
Francois Le, Clark Ra (1979) · Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Water-soluble constituents from the bark ofElaeagnus pungensand their cytotoxic activities
Yanbing Wu, Yong Gu, Ming‐An Ouyang (2010) · Journal of Asian Natural Products Research

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Elaeagnus 4 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 114 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.