The autumn olives (Elaeagnus umbellata) are laden with fruit this year.
The wet summer has been very good for things that produce fruit, and each of these berries has a seed in it.
If a bird eats it, the seed will pass through the bird, and a new autumn olive will grow.
And this wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t such a persistent invasive species.
This plant does very well in West Virginia. Abandoned pastures that have begun the transition back to forest soon fill with autumn olives and multiflora rose. Within just a few years, the tallest things standing in the pasture are the autumn olives.
The berries feed the birds and provide cover for them to nest and roost.
But the plant itself holds off the new forest from returning. Succession is held off while the invasive species flourishes.
Autumn olives were originally brought into West Virginia to “reafforest” strip mine lands, where they certainly do thrive.
However, they don’t just stay there. The birds carry them all over.
I don’t think anything can be done to stop this plant. It’s just that hardy.
I’ve heard the berries are edible, but I’ve never tried them.
I think all leave them to the birds.
At least for now.
Eventually local pathogens and insects will mutate and adapt to the plant and keep it in ecological balance. The trouble is that it might take a couple of hundred years before this happens. The blink of an eye in evolutionary terms but an eternity in the context of a single human lifetime. At least the plant isn’t toxic and provides food for wild birds. Do deer browse the leaves as well?
I wonder if the berries make decent jam.
There is a Bipolaris fungus that kills Japanese stiltgrass now. Japanese stiltgrass is a far worse invasive than the autumn olives.
Now we need something to kill garlic mustard!
Almost all of these autumn olives have red fruit. But there’s a reclaimed strip mine site near where I live that has a few autumn olives with yellow fruit.
Maybe not ripe yet?
A few comments. 1) The fruit is edible–no great shakes, but edible. 2) Both this plant & the Japanese rose do serve to protect young oaks from foraging by deer and as young forest matures both ultimately get shaded out. 3) Send me some of that Bipolaris fungus–quick! 4) Mile-a-minute vine, oriental bittersweet, wineberry, Callery (aka Bradford) pear, lesser celandine, and Indian strawberry are at least as nasty as the invasives you mention. All are here to stay and will eventually have to fit into our ecosystem but in the meantime, they’re a royal pain in the biome.
Side note: I’m hoping that one of our native species of little blue butterflies (many of whom are endangered) will eventually adapt to eating stiltgrass. That’d be a big win-win.
Oh, I forgot, in re the garlic mustard: Some native Brassica pests have been seen on garlic mustard, but the best bet is for people to forage it. There are recipes for it on-line, tasty sounding concoctions like Garlic Mustard Vichsoissse. Its also used as a substitute for spinach in spinach pies, et al and can be used instead of lettuce on a hamburger. The key is to pick it before it flowers. (And yes it contains some cyanide, but this is common to Brassicas as a group.)
No, they are yellow when fully ripened. I saved some seed and I’m going to grow a few to see if they come true from seed. If they survive I’ll also try a cross with a red-fruited one from another location.