Flora-Fauna

Elaeagnus angustifolia L.

(First published in Sp. Pl.: 121 (1753); Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 2, Pl. CCXLIX nº 4; 1970, as Elaeagnus angustifolia L., syn. E. hortensis Bieb.)

• Life-form & habit : Shrub or small tree, 3–5 m tall or more, unarmed or sometimes spinescent; plant covered with peltate hairs giving the foliage and young parts a silvery aspect.

• Leaves : Alternate, entire, narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 2–6 cm long, silvery.

• Inflorescence & flowers : Flowers about 5 mm long, grouped in axillary fascicles; pedicels nearly as long as the perianth tube, the tube itself silvery; lobes triangular, slightly shorter than the tube, yellow inside; style glabrous.

• Fruit : Fruit bacciform to drupaceous; Mouterde notes only that the fruit is berry-like, and adds that the cultivated edible form with larger berries appears to be absent from the cultivated plants of Lebanon and Syria.

• Phenology : Flowers from April to June.

• Habitat & elevation : Planted in hedges or subspontaneous; recorded from coastal, Mediterranean continental and Anti-Lebanon localities.

• Lebanese distribution : Recorded by Mouterde from Beyrouth, Tripoli, the Beqa'a, and Seraïn-el-Foqa'a in the Anti-Lebanon.

• Native range : Afghanistan, Altay, Assam, Central European Russia, China North-Central, China Southeast, East Aegean Is., East European Russia, Inner Mongolia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, Manchuria, Mongolia, Myanmar, North Caucasus, Pakistan, Palestine, Qinghai, South European Russia, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Turkmenistan, Türkiye, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, West Himalaya, West Siberia, Xinjiang.

• Diagnostic remarks : Recognizable among the Lebanese and Syrian woody flora by its silvery, narrow, entire leaves, axillary fascicles of small yellow-inside flowers, silvery perianth tube, and glabrous style. Mouterde treated it as planted in hedges or subspontaneous, while POWO includes Lebanon-Syria within the native range. (powo.science.kew.org)