Looks like autumn olive, Elaeagnus umbellata? What's the name of the cultivar you're referring to?

Those are some nice close-up photos, thanks....

Posted by fabaceae_native (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 15:42

Thank you so much. They are definitely related but not the same species. The berry in the image is a cultivar of Elaeagnus Conteta Koxb.

Yes, gorgeous pictures. Makes me want to grow and eat them even though I don't know much about them.

Their is all kinds of interesting Elaeagnus species. I want to check out the yellow one. Some silverberry hybrids look interesting too. Ornamental, nitrogen fixing, and generally invasive I'm afraid.

Posted by Drew51 6a SE MI (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 19:36

To claim this plant invasive shows your ignorance :) For a truly endangered and valuable Elaeagnus, click here.

This post was edited by jujujojo on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 20:12

How does this Koxb compare with Sweet Scarlet or Red Gem Goumi?

Posted by danzeb 7a long island (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 19:49

Koxb is a tropical or sub-tropical crop. It is used as a fruit.

To the best of my knowledge, Sweet Scarlet or Red Gem Gourmi are used for medicine.

I do not sell any of these but just to share some agriculture information which I find interesting :)

"To claim this plant invasive shows your ignorance "

I never said this plant was invasive. You read that into it.
Which was quite ignorant, well no just stupid. Many Elaeagnus species are considered invasive and even banned from import. I myself think that is a little harsh. It is a fine genus that should not be banned in some states. That's all I was saying. And your link is to a different Elaeagnus species than what you posted? No sure what your point is there? Is Elaeagnus Conteta Koxb endangered?

This post was edited by Drew51 on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 20:53

Posted by Drew51 6a SE MI (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 20:44

LOL. The sweet ones all come from just one plant. They are not bred by seed.

You said something like invasive in general, so I only need to supply one counter example. Click the link :)

This post was edited by jujujojo on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 21:03

"To the best of my knowledge, Sweet Scarlet or Red Gem Gourmi are used for medicine"

Both are also used for the fruit. Crimson Star is another cultivar.

Posted by Drew51 6a SE MI (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 21:02

I never have any Sweet Scarlet or Crimson Star. I never see any on sale. Maybe I should visit farmers' market?

This post was edited by jujujojo on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 21:11

I did, but I still have the question is Elaeagnus Conteta Koxb endangered? Somehow we have a failure to communicate. My statement says that in general Elaeagnus genus is considered invasive (read it again).
I should have been more clear, sorry. I was referring to
Autumn and Russian Olive. They are the most common Elaeagnus species.
You can buy many Elaeagnus cultivars from Edible Landscapes, One Green World, and Raintree to name a few of many nurseries that sell them. Not this species you mentioned, but many Elaeagnus species. The states CT,MA,NH,TN,WI,WV,CA do not allow them to be imported. Or at least some cultivars. Sorry to be rude too, that was not needed. My bad.

This post was edited by Drew51 on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 21:21

Posted by Drew51 6a SE MI (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 21:06

Elaeagnus Conteta Koxb is not endangered. But I have shown an Elaeagnus that is endangered though. I also explained that this sweet cultivar comes from one plant..

Posted by Drew51 6a SE MI (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 21:06

Drew, I like people who are honest and knowledgeable. You have both :)

I don't like the kind of people who are polite but who hide their true opinions.

As long as I can learn from you, I appreciate you. After the exchange, I will hopefully try some Sweet Scarlet or Crimson Star. Are they used the same way as olive? Are they very sweet and fruity?

For shipping, the fruits are very soft, they need protection in the boxes:

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I dont see Elagneus as being new. The russians and chinese have been eating these for a long long time. IF anything its new to the west or North America.

There seems to be a resurgance of "lost" fruit or more ethnic foods becoming more available. Think of pawpaw.... In canada it has happened with saskatoonberries (amelanchier), and new hyrids of the edible honeysuckle (honeyberry/haskap). Cornus Mas seems to be more accepted now too. Then there are goji berry and jujube. Elagneus definitely fits into this catagory IMO.

Posted by canadianplant (My Page) on Thu, Sep 19, 13 at 10:13

I am not disagreeing with you. All the plants we know have been there for millions of years :)

I mean this specific cultivar is new. I guess my title is misleading. Elaeagnus Conteta Koxb used to have a very tart taste. The sweet one is a new and recent development.

Also, plants in the same genus may have diverging taste. Lime and Mandarin orange are in the same genus ;) More extremely, eggplants, potatoes and tomatoes are also in the same genus ...

This post was edited by jujujojo on Thu, Sep 19, 13 at 10:39

Seems to have been introduced in the mid to late 80s

"Summary:
I. Introduction Elaeagnus (Elaeagnus Conteta Koxb), also known as dense flower Elaeagnus, Nanhu decadent son, is Elaeagnaceae Elaeagnus perennial evergreen trees, fruit in March-May of fruit season matures, it was originally a wild fruit, in my area Fangcheng, days, etc. counties are distributed. I have successfully introduced in 1985, is currently being Yulin, Guangxi, South"

Here is a link that might be useful: hopefuly translated page

Posted by canadianplant (My Page) on Thu, Sep 19, 13 at 10:43

Thank you so much. How interesting, see next:

That paper records the starting point. They first domesticated the plant. Over the next decade, they conducted a project to "sweeten" the berries of Elaeagnus Conteta Koxb.

There is a 2009 publication here. The paper reports that the project took place or started to succeed from 2003 to 2008. At the conclusion of this project, a purely sweet cultivar has been developed. The edible part of the berry is 91%.

The new cultivar is called Dehong Sweet Elaeagnus Conteta Koxb (å¾·å®Âè¡禿æÂÂ). Dehong refers to the region of the original crop - Dehong Dai (a branch of Thai people) and Jingpo (Kachin people) Autonomous Prefecture.

I notice Canada is rich in wild species of the genus. Maybe, there is space for development :)

This post was edited by jujujojo on Thu, Sep 19, 13 at 12:17

That is very interesting. I want to plant these in my yard eventually, and I've been waiting in part for more cultivars to come out. Hopefully it will be available here sometime (it's not, is it? I can't read any Asian language :) ).

One man's meat is another's poison. I prefer them how they are. It would be like sweetening a currant. Current Elaeagnus species are excellent just the way they are. I like to cook with such berries (currants and autumn olives). I can then control sweetness myself. To me the balance of acid and sugar make all fruits. The new trend to removing acid to make corn syrup like fruits is not appealing to me in any way. But I know many like the low acid taste. So I see why. I don't have to buy them myself. As far as doing any research on our cultivars. I doubt that would happen. Maybe these fruits will develop commercial potential in the future.. Currently so many new berries are of interest, these are often overlooked, and still are. A shame. I really like these plants. I'm glad my state does not label them as invasive and I can grow them here. Since they can tolerate some shade, they are very useful for me in my naturalized garden at my cottage.

This looks like So-Shang or Elaeagnus latifolia. I have some sticks rooting at this moment but so far, nothing is sprouting. It is like a plum sized Goumi berry.

Oooh, good info. I like currants very, very much, and I'm not allowed to have them at all here in NC.

I'm writing down these names. Plum-sized sounds awesome.

I really want to grow Elaeagnus but it's so hard to know what to choose when you've never had one. I do grow an ornamental one, but it's never flowered (it's in an extremely shady spot). They seem easy to grow.

Eleagnus species are easy to grow here in NC. Even if you taste them and don't really care for them at first, they eventually grow on you and you start to crave them. My main complaint is that the berries are pretty small, blueberry size or smaller. I have one that has larger fruits but it is proving hard to propagate (which is odd for this genus). The invasive species known as Autumn Olive should be in fruit now if you want to snoop around and find some to taste. They taste best fully ripe which can be hard to determine if you are new to the fruit. Kinda like a cherry mixed with cranberry. They'll be sweeter as they get extra ripe. They're small and the seed is big so you don't get much meat off of each berry but they usually fruit heavily and hold the fruit for around a month.

I'm glad the Chinese have improved whatever species is in the photos above but it might be awhile before anyone in the US gets a hold of some plants. Importing can be tricky when other members of the same genus are highly invasive.

"I'm glad the Chinese have improved whatever species is in the photos above but it might be awhile before anyone in the US gets a hold of some plants. Importing can be tricky when other members of the same genus are highly invasive."

I agree! The romance series of tart cherry trees was produced 10 years ago in Canada, and still not seen here, give it 30 or 40 years, and you might get this from China.

Dont feel too bad drew. The series has only just become widely available here through big bo stores like canadian tire and home depot. You had to either find one of a few nurseries that had them or apply for the material directly from u of sask.

Personally I chose Evans instead of the romance series. I am waiting news of the pear breeding program, where they have been developing a prairie hardy pear with european/russian/asian pear genes. They seem to be focusing on haskap berries at the moment as well.

Well i hope they are around soon. I have to move anyway. I'm looking forward to searching for a new home with a huge yard :) It's at least 3 years away, before I move. So I should not really buy anymore trees anyway. Although i did buy 2 this year already! No more though! I will lose all the trees here in the city. Oh well, I will start over. I have been concentrating on rare rubus species. As I can take those with me. One from Africa, and one from Japan (not wineberry). I have to grow them from seed though. See what happens...

Thank you, trianglejohn! I'll definitely try to try them. I've never seen the invasive one growing nearby, if that's the one with the pretty silver leaves. I used to want to grow it for foliage, but I decided to go with other silver leaved plants because I have so many birds around here! I sure don't need to plant anything that is invasive by seed.

Posted by meredith_e 7B Piedmont NC (My Page) on Thu, Sep 26, 13 at 20:43

Yes, the reason that people initially find potential in this is that their fruits are really large - plum like. Unfortunately, the plant is a sub-tropical crop. The area where they conduct the research is at least zone 8.