Sambucus nigra – Black Elder

Elders are small deciduous trees often with an untidy, large shrub/ small tree appearance. Its bole is normally short and an old bole often has fast-growing young shoots emerging from it. Its bark is deeply grooved and furrowed bark, greyish brown with a sometimes corky texture in older specimens. It has many branches, spreading and twisted. Branches and twigs have a soft white pitch in the centre. Its leaves are opposite and compound with 5-9 pairs of leaflets, each one up to 12cm long ovate and pointed with a sharply toothed margin and a hairy underside. It produces sickly sweet smelling flowers in dense clusters up to 24cm across. Individual flowers are small and composed of 3-5 white petals and anthers. Its fruit is a rounded and shiny blackberry, often produced in great numbers and pendulous heads. It is extremely widespread and common across Europe, including the British Isles, except in the far North. It is common wherever soil has a high nitrogen content. In some areas it is treated as a weed and removed, in others it is highly regarded for its edible fruit and flowers as it attracts an abundance of wildlife like Nectar-feeding insects and birds.