Plant of the Week: Elderberry

Respect your elders! 

The American Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) is the holy grail of shrubs!  While being known as a delicious treat in the form of jams, jellies and syrups, it's also been used for health benefits for centuries.  Elderberry berries are full of antioxidants and help boost your immune system.  Indigenous people have utilized this plant to treat colds and flus, and as teas or salves.  Like humans, birds enjoy eating elderberry berries, but humans must cook the berries to be able to safely ingest them.  When in bloom, elderberry is recognizable by the large flat-topped flowering heads.  

Each flowering head contains many small cream-colored flowers that turn into rich dark purple berries, so dense around the shrub that they cause the limbs of the shrub to droop.  Another key identifier for this multi-stemmed shrub is the bark. The bark is covered in lenticels, small light-colored dots.  You can find elderberry growing alongside moist wooded areas, stream banks, and even near roadside ditches or along railroad tracks.  Madison elderberry shrubs are full of ripe dark berries now, so keep your eyes peeled for this great native plant!