Common Elderberry
Scientific name: Sambucus nigra L. ssp. canadensis
The American elder is an erect, thicket-forming, somewhat woody shrub, 4-12 feet tall, with smooth yellowish-gray branchlets and white pith. Elderberry is planted because of its forage and cover value, productivity, adaptability, and ease of establishment. It is a useful ground cover for stabilizing streambanks and eroding sites. It provides food, cover, perching, and nesting sites for many species of birds and food and cover for various other wildlife, and it is important as browse for mule deer and elk. In the spring the leaves may be strongly scented and less palatable, but they sweeten and become more palatable by fall.
Leaves
Compound leaves are set oppositely in pairs in a feather-like arrangement. The leaf surface is bright green. The oval to lance-shaped leaflets are up to 6 inches long and 2 ½ inches wide, with finely serrated margins.
Fruit
Elderberries are quite edible. The blue or purple berries are gathered and made into elderberry wine, jam, syrup, and pies. The entire flower cluster can be dipped in batter and fried while petals can be eaten raw or made into a fragrant and tasty tea. The flowers add an aromatic flavor and lightness to pancakes or fritters. The red berries of other species are toxic and should not be gathered.
Fruits ripen from late July into September. They are round, slightly bitter, edible purple-black berries with crimson juice. Each is less than 1/4 inch across, borne in large clusters. Each berry contains 3-5 small seeds. Seed dispersal occurs from July to October, usually through vigorous ingestion by birds and mammals. There are about 230,000 seeds per pound.
Flowers
Numerous 1/4 inch fragrant white flowers, emerge from late June into August. The terminal clusters of flowers, measuring 4-10 inches across, are broad, flat or slightly rounded and long-stalked.
Did You Know?
The wood is hard and has been used for combs, spindles, and pegs, and the hollow stems have been fashioned into flutes, arrow shafts, whistles, clapper sticks and blowguns.
Habitat
American elder occupies well-drained, slightly acid soil bordering streams, and in the adjacent bottomlands, but also grows on gray forest soils and muck. This shrub is widespread and abundant. American elder grows best in full sunlight. Once established, elders soon outdistance herbaceous competition. Thickets of elder are replaced by more shade-tolerant species during the later stages of forest succession, but individual plants and small runners will persist under a forest canopy.
Leaves
Compound leaves are set oppositely in pairs in a feather-like arrangement. The leaf surface is bright green. The oval to lance-shaped leaflets are up to 6 inches long and 2 ½ inches wide, with finely serrated margins.
Fruit
Elderberries are quite edible. The blue or purple berries are gathered and made into elderberry wine, jam, syrup, and pies. The entire flower cluster can be dipped in batter and fried while petals can be eaten raw or made into a fragrant and tasty tea. The flowers add an aromatic flavor and lightness to pancakes or fritters. The red berries of other species are toxic and should not be gathered.
Fruits ripen from late July into September. They are round, slightly bitter, edible purple-black berries with crimson juice. Each is less than 1/4 inch across, borne in large clusters. Each berry contains 3-5 small seeds. Seed dispersal occurs from July to October, usually through vigorous ingestion by birds and mammals. There are about 230,000 seeds per pound.
Flowers
Numerous 1/4 inch fragrant white flowers, emerge from late June into August. The terminal clusters of flowers, measuring 4-10 inches across, are broad, flat or slightly rounded and long-stalked.
Ecosystem Connections
At least 50 species of songbirds, upland game birds, and small mammals relish the fruit of American elder during summer and early fall. White-tailed deer browse the twigs, foliage and fruit during the summer. American elder is outstanding as nesting cover for small birds. During summer, the partial shade under American elder promotes a dense ground cover of grasses and forbs that offers good loafing or feeding areas for broods of young pheasants and quail.
Credit: Gary A. Monroe, USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database
Elderberry Flowers, Credit: Joseph A. Marcus
Elderberry Fruit, Credit: Albert F.W. Vick
Elderberry Leaves, Credit: Robert H. Mohlenbrock
More on Trees and Shrubs in Lewisboro
Lewisboro was once entirely forested except for patches of open field caused by fire and wetlands and ponds which were expanded by beaver dams. Although it is hard to believe, by 1800 most of Lewisboro’s forests had been cut down and replaced by farms. In 1820 so many trees had been cleared that there was no shade anywhere along the route from Boston to New York.[1] But by the mid-1800’s farming here became uneconomical and as farms were abandoned, the forests began to re-grow. Today, 70% of New York is once again forest, what some call ‘the great environmental story of the United States’[2]. These new forests provide us with beauty and recreation, clean air and water, flood control, erosion prevention, carbon sequestration, cooler temperatures and habitat for other plants, insects, birds and other wildlife.
[1] Cronon, William. Changes in the Land. Macmillan, 1983.
[2] An Explosion of Green. B. Mckibben. Atlantic Monthly 275 (April 1995): 61-83.