Common Name:
COMMON ELDER, ELDERBERRY
|
Coefficient of Conservatism:
3
Coefficient of Wetness:
-3
Wetness Index:
FACW
Physiognomy:
Nt Shrub
B. S. Walters
Wet ground, including swamps and floodplains, ditches, borders of forests, thickets, shores; scattered in marshes and meadows.
The fully ripe purple-black fruit in large flat-topped, umbelliform cymes can be used for making jelly, pie, or wine. The new branchlets and branches of the inflorescence are glabrous or nearly so. Sometimes included with the European S. nigra as subsp. canadensis (L.) Bolli.
Sambucus nigra is a larger plant, often a small tree with a substantial trunk, typically has 5 leaflets on leaves of fertile shoots, and the fruiting clusters tend to be pendulous. Sambucus canadensis is always a shrub, almost never with a substantial trunk, often has 7 leaflets on leaves of fertile shoots, and the fruiting clusters are usually more or less erect.