Elaeagnus multiflora Thunb.

A deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub 6 to 10 ft high, as much or more across; young branches covered with red-brown scales. Leaves oval, obovate, or ovate, 11⁄2 to 21⁄2 in. long, 3⁄4 to 11⁄2 in. wide, tapered at both ends, green, and furnished with scattered tufted hairs above, becoming glabrous later, silvery beneath, with a dense covering of tiny scales, intermingled with which are larger reddish-brown ones; stalk 1⁄4 in. long. Flowers fragrant, produced in April and May along with, and in the leaf-axils of, the new shoots; often solitary, about 5⁄8 in. long, 3⁄8 in. wide; scaly like the under-surface of the leaf. Fruit 1⁄2 in. long, oblong, deep orange, scaly, with a very acid but agreeable flavour; stalk 3⁄4 to 1 in. long. Bot. Mag., t. 7341.

Native of Japan, whence it was introduced about 1862; also of China and probably Korea. It is cultivated in Japan for its fruit, and, according to Sargent, becomes a small tree 20 to 25 ft high, with a trunk 1 ft in diameter. The fruits are very abundantly borne, and make the bush very handsome when ripe in July, hanging along the underside of the branches. Birds are fond of them.

E. multiflora is a rather variable species. The leaves may be narrower than in the tree described, and the fruit-stalks up to 2 in. long.