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Sambucus canadensis
Also called American Black Elderberry, Canada Elderberry, Sweet Elder, Common Elderberry, White Elder, American Elderberry, Canadian Elder
American elder is a deciduous suckering shrub native to eastern North America, grown for its white summer flower clusters and edible dark berries. It likes moist soil and sun to part shade, and is easy to establish in gardens and wet sites.
Sambucus canadensis, the American black elderberry, Canada elderberry, or common elderberry, is a New World species of elderberry that forms a shrub primarily in temperate regions.
Most parts of the plant are toxic with cyanogenic glycosides, but the ripe berries can be cooked for food use with the seeds removed.
Inedible parts of the plant, such as the leaves, stems, roots, seeds and unripe fruits, can be toxic due to the presence of cyanogenic glycosides and alkaloids.
The species is native to a large area of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, south throughout the mainland Americas to Bolivia. It is considered introduced in the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Traditional methods of consuming elderberry includes sweetened jams, jellies, and syrups, all of which cook down the fruit and strain out the seeds. A drink can be made from soaking the flower heads in water for eight hours. Other uses for the fruit include wine, jelly and dye. The leaves and inner bark may be used as an insecticide and a dye.
Blue elderberry · Dwarf Elder · Chinese Elder · Elder · Red-berried Elder · Elder
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sambucus canadensis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
