Elaeagnaceae

Shrubs or small trees with scaly bark, a floral tube, no petals, a single carpel, and dense silvery or rusty, scales or star-shaped hairs on the leaves, twigs and buds. The scales are on stalks, much like the stalk of a mushroom.

Flowers in racemes or small umbels, on twigs of the current or previous year, or solitary in the axils, symmetrical in 2 or more directions (radially). The floral tube is tubular and constricted above the ovary in flowers with carpels, and cup-shaped to almost flat in flowers producing only pollen but no seeds. An 8-lobed nectar disk may be present at the top of the floral tube. Petals none. Sepals 4, often yellow to yellow-green on their inner surface, petal-like, appearing as lobes on the floral tube, close to each other without overlapping. Stamens 4 or 8, as many as the sepals or twice as many, separate, their stalks very short and attached in the throat of the floral tube. Carpel 1; ovary 1, located above the point of attachment of the other flower parts (superior); style 1, long and slender. Pollen and seeds may be produced in separate plants, or both may be produced in the same flower on the same plant. Fruit an achene, surrounded by the fleshy or mealy base of the floral tube and resembling a stone fruit or berry.

Leaves simple, entire, lance-shaped, alternate or opposite, their veins arising from both sides of the midvein, and the secondary veins numerous, prominent and roughly parallel to these. Leaves may or may not be fully expanded at the time of flowering. Stipules absent.

Nodules on the roots contain certain soil bacteria, enabling them to fix atmospheric nitrogen and enrich the soil.