The only things in this family that grow around here are invasive exotic species ranging from trees to shrubs, and the primary reason for most of it is government projects or regulations that both select the lowest bidder. The species include Russian olive, Elaeagnus angutifolia L., autumn olive, E. umbellata Thunb., and thorny olive, E. pungens Thunb., where listed in order of size respectively as a tree, upright shrub or small tree, and a scrambling shrub. Russian olive is more often found to the north and west, autumn olive is mostly in the east with disjunct populations established into the Pacific northwest, and thorny olive is primarily reported escaped in the southeast. Typical examples of these weeds being planted are highway
beatification (a misnomer if I ever saw one) projects using thorny olive, and strip mine
reclamation using both Russian olive and autumn olive since both of which also fix nitrogen despite being nonleguminous. After that birds eat the fruits and spread the
seeds everywhere, and a few people have actually transplanted them from strip mines. The Russian olive and thorny olive have oblong fruit and respectively has silvery or silver-brown scales on both upper and lower surfaces of the leaves as well as the twigs while autumn olive has round fruit and silvery scales only on the lower leaf surface and twigs. Fortunately Russian olive is shade intolerant, but the other two are shade tolerant considering that Russian olive is deciduous, while thorny olive is evergreen with more leathery leaves, and autumn olive is tardily deciduous, keeping at least some leaves until just before new leaves are produced in spring. All three have thorns, therefore resulting in avoidance when a bush-hog would have otherwise kept them under control. The most effective method of control I have used is girdling.
The silvery appearance of the leaves have some ornamental value, considering the previous mention of plants actually being taken from strip mines by people that obviously do not know what they are doing, but there are much better native alternatives. My favorite alternative is Alabama croton, Crotonalabamensis E.A. Sm. ex Chapm., which is a tardily deciduous shrub that has much better color on the leaves especially those about to drop. Another found at higher elevations in the Southern Appalachians is minniebush, Menziesia pilosa (Michx. ex Lam.) Juss. ex Pers., although I am not as familiar with it other than descriptions of it having glands instead of scales and finely serrate leaf margins, but everything in the heath family, Ericaceae, is better than any of the weeds in Elaeagnaceae.
I have seen claims that the fruit of autumn olive is eatable, but it was made by a poor excuse for a
nursery more interested in high volume sales than either the
consequences or customer service, therefore I
don't see where it would be worth growing considering how weedy it
becomes. The only credence to that claim is that other members of the family are listed as edible. These in order of preferred flavor are silver buffaloberry, Shepherdiaargentea (Pursh) Nutt., russet or Canadian buffaloberry, S.canadensis (L.) Nutt., and silverberry, E.commutata Bernh. ex Rydb., which is synonymous with E.argentea Pursh, non Moench., but all of these are native far to the north and west.
Autumn olive has also been identified as the oil tree mentioned in Isaiah 41:19.
