Sambucus nigra

Sambucus nigra is a species complex of flowering plants in the family Adoxaceae native to most of Europe and North America. Common names include elder, elderberry, black elder, European elder, European elderberry, and European black elderberry. It grows in a variety of conditions including both wet and dry fertile soils, primarily in sunny locations. Elder is cited as a poisonous plant for mammals, and as a weed in certain habitats. The plant is a very common feature of hedgerows and scrubland in Britain and northern Europe, but also is widely grown as an ornamental shrub or small tree. Both the flowers and the berries have a long tradition of culinary use, primarily for cordial and wine. The Latin specific epithet nigra means “black”, and refers to the deeply dark colour of the berries. The English term for the tree is not believed to come from the word 'old', but from the Anglo Saxon æld, meaning fire, because the hollow stems of the branches were used as bellows to blow air into a fire. Elderberry is a deciduous shrub or small tree growing to 6 m (20 ft) tall and wide, rarely reaching 10 m (33 ft) tall). The bark, light grey when young, changes to a coarse grey outer bark with lengthwise furrowing, lenticels prominent. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, 10–30 cm long, pinnate with five to seven (rarely nine) leaflets, the leaflets 5–12 cm long and 3–5 cm broad, with a serrated margin. The young stems are hollow. The hermaphroditic flowers have five stamens, which are borne in large, flat corymbs 10–25 cm diameter in late spring to mid-summer, the individual flowers are ivory white, 5–6 mm diameter, with five petals; they are pollinated by flies. The fruit is a glossy, dark purple to black berry 3–5 mm diameter, produced in drooping clusters in late autumn; they are an important food for many fruit-eating birds, notably blackcaps. In subtropical areas of North America, fruit may be borne in July as well. There are several other closely related species, native to Asia and North America, which are similar, and sometimes treated as subspecies of Sambucus nigra. The blue or Mexican elderberry, Sambucus mexicana, is now generally treated as one or two subspecies of Sambucus nigra subsp. canadensis and Sambucus nigra subsp. caerulea. Hedges, waste-ground roadsides, and woods are the typical habitats for the species.S. nigra is recorded as very common in Ireland in hedges as scrub in woods.