United States / Grow / autumn olive

autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)
Photo: (c) Carrie Seltzer, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

autumn olive

Elaeagnus umbellata · Elaeagnaceae · all Elaeagnus records · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Elaeagnus umbellata has 7 legal-list rows covering DE, IN, ME, MA, NY, OH, and VA in the regulatory record. A separate WV entry appears under seed-list status.

The sole fire row gives Autumn olive an avoid direction and LZ3 placement in the evidence table. The two ecological reports separately record invasive status in Hawaii and widespread-invasive status across the lower 48. The page stays limited evidence.

hardiness evidence distinguishes an uncertain 5 from an applicable 4b minimum. Range evidence retains introduced occurrences, related plants keeps comparisons, and the genus page preserves the taxonomic route.

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Form
shrub
Mature height
~15 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
moderate
Rated in
eastern US
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
eastern US

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV.
Introduced / established
39 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 4b; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
7 legal-list records; the Place chip matches exact scope.
Seed-list status
1 state noxious-weed seed record; the Place chip matches exact scope.
Reported invasive here
2 ecological invasive reports.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

0

exact source areas

Current introduced

39

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

39 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • District of Columbia (DC)
  • Delaware (DE)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Hawaii (HI)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kansas (KS)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Louisiana (LA)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • Mississippi (MS)
  • Montana (MT)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • Nebraska (NE)
  • New Hampshire (NH)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oklahoma (OK)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Rhode I. (RI)
  • South Carolina (SC)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (1)

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Fire-resistant shrubs listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Elaeagnus umbellata (Autumn olive). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/elaeagnus-umbellata/. Last verified 2026-08-23.