Trees & Shrubs of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Canada Elderberry is a large growing, late flowering native perennial shrub that only comes into flower in mid-June and can still be flowering while the early fruit is ripening. Stems, usually multiple, can reach up to 10 feet high, usually arching. While the plant can form a small tree, in Minnesota it is found as a multi-stemmed shrub.

The bark is smooth becoming furrowed and rougher with age.

Twigs and young stems are yellow-green with large warty lenticels and a white brittle pith.

Leaves are opposite, pinnate with 2 to 4 opposite pairs of leaflets and one terminal leaflet, all with serrate edges, and ovate in shape. The bottom leaflet often is 3-lobed. The upper surface is darker green, the underside paler with fine white hair on the veins.

Inflorescence: Flowers occur in a cluster of corymbs (flat-topped clusters), the cluster being dense and itself somewhat flat-topped, but quite wide - up to 8+ inches. Each corymb of the cluster has individually stalked flowers, stalks of variable length so as to produce the flat top. Corymbs occur on the ends of new growth. Flowers are lightly fragrant.

Flowers: The flowers are small, with a white corolla that has 5 rounded and spreading petals. There are 5 stamens, with yellow anthers and white filaments, that are erect to somewhat spreading and are placed alternate to the corolla lobes. The ovary is creamy-white and appears to lack a style, but it has actually withered away early. The calyx is also creamy white, very short, with 5 pointed lobes.

Fruit: The fruit is a small berry-like drupe about 1/4 inch in diameter, which begins green, then turning reddish and eventually purplish-black. These are edible once they have been boiled. Each drupe contains a few small seeds.

Toxicity: Sap from the pith of stems and the bark itself is very toxic, containing calcium oxalate crystals, viburnic acid and a resin.

 

Habitat: Canada Elderberry grows from a rhizomatous root system and spreads by suckering. The plant is found in moist sunny spots and in the countryside is frequently seen along the edges of woodlands. There is considerable literature on the uses of this plant. See the lore section below. It blooms late compared to most shrubs and new blooms can sometimes be seen in August in central Minnesota even when fruit is setting on the earlier blooms.

Names: In the never ending quest for specificity, botanists have recently moved the Sambucus genus into the Adoxaceae plant family, which is a small group of 5 genera of shrubs that have opposite leaves, mostly 5-petaled flowers that produce a small drupe - such as the Viburnums. Minnesota authorities have made this change, USDA has not yet. The genus used to be in the Caprifoliaceae family (Honeysuckle). The genus name, Sambucus, refers to a Greek musical instrument, the sambuke, made from elderwood as the stems can be easily hollowed out to make flutes and other instruments. The elder Pliny makes reference to this. The species name nigra means 'black' or 'dark' and refers to the dark color of the mature berries. The old species and new subspecies name canadensis refers to "of Canada." The plant is also native to Europe and the word "elder" derives from the Anglo-Saxon "aeld."

The author names for the plant classification are: First to classify was '(L.)' which refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy. Later work on the species was done by 'R.Bolli' which refers to refers to Richard Bolli, (b. 1957) Swiss born Botanist, Professor of Botany at Harvard University. His major work is the Revision of the Genus Sambucus published in 1994. In earlier years this species was classified Sambucus canadensis L.; however, in Bolli's revision of the genus that species and 5 others were placed together as subspecies of S. nigra in the Adoxaceae family. As noted above, some authorities do not yet agree and have left the plant in its old family - the Honeysuckle (Caprifoliaceae).

Comparisons: The first flowers of S. nigra, don't occur until the Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) has already set fruit that is turning red. These two species of Sambucus are the only ones found native in Minnesota.