The American Elder (Sambucus Canadensis) is a large shrub in the honeysuckle family often found growing 4 - 12ft high along waterways, ditches, or anywhere with damp well drained soil throughout the eastern and midwestern United States. They have a branched silvery barked trunk and an opposite pinnate leaf structure with 5 - 11 finely serrated leaflets. In the early spring, they develop numerous white flower clusters with broad, flat tops that then transform into berries that go from green to a fully ripened dark purple-black by late summer. There are poisonous look-alikes, particularly devil's walking stick, water hemlock, and poison hemlock so be very cautious when harvesting and identifying (Learn More Here).
It's currently June and the elders are in full bloom, offering us a bounty for making delicious wines, liquors, syrups and cordials. The flowers pair so well with tart flavors like citrus or rhubarb in a refreshing beverage or dessert. If you have ever enjoyed a cocktail with St Germain, you have experienced the heavenly floral magic that is the elderflower.
Medicinally, the flowering tops are a relaxing diaphoretic, releasing tension and allowing heat to escape the body, making them beneficial in relieving fever from a cold or flu. They also help to tone the mucous linings of the nose and throat due to the presence of tannins and viburnic acid and are often prescribed as a tea infusion or tincture for congestion, ear infections, and allergies. Elderflower has been used in cosmetics for centuries. Distilled elderflower water softens, tones, and restores the skin. An infusion can be used topically to lighten freckles and soothe sunburn. Even the scent of elderflowers is uplifting when dealing with heavy or burdensome emotional states.
When harvesting elderflower, remove all the stem pieces before working with the blossoms. The stem, bark, leaves, root, and green berries of the elder tree are all toxic (contains dangerous amounts of cyanogenic glycoside that converts into cyanide when consumed). Only the flowers and fully ripe elderberries (purplish-black with bright red juice) are edible, but have to be cooked to render them edible in quantity. Keep in mind that if you pick all the elderflower blooms you won't get any berries in late summer.
Once the elderberries are fully ripe (purplish-black with bright red juice), we can harvest them for baking and medicine making as well! Once picked, the berries should be refrigerated or processed right away in order to preserve it's nutritional and medicinal qualities. Reminder: the elderberries have to be cooked or dried at high heat to be consumed in quantity. The berries are a good source of vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, vitamin B6, flavonoids, lectins, and anthocyanins making them nutritive and antioxidant rich. They have an established antiviral activity as well as an immune stimulating action, helping to prevent and speed recovery from upper respiratory infections, such as colds and flu. A 1995 study found that 90% of people given elderberry extract recovered in 2-3 days, while 90% of those taking the placebo took up to 6 days.
Both the flowers and berries are mildly laxative and diuretic.
The common name of “elder” from the Anglo-Saxon word aeld, meaning “fire,” as the hollow stems of the young branches were used for blowing up a fire: the soft pith pushes out easily and the tubes thus formed were used as musical pipe, drinking straw, or fire building pipe - hence it was often called Pipe-Tree, or Bore-tree (wood has to be thoroughly dried before use in this way because of the poisons in it. People have died using the twigs to tap maple trees or as pea shooters)(More history here).The elder tree has been used by Native Americans as medicine particularly in treating fevers and rheumatism long before the colonizers arrived. The Ojibwa called this plant flute reed.
In Europe, elder flower and berry of the Sambucus Nigra species (a relative with the same culinary and medicinal uses) are part of a notable herbal tradition as well. It is said that in 800 CE, Charlemagne decreed that an elder be planted in every yard in his domain to act as a medicine cabinet and that is why so many european homes have an elder in their yard to this day. Chopping elder branches was considered dangerous as it was believed that the tree was inhabited by the Elder Mother, and to avoid her wrath, woodcutters would recite a placatory rhyme. It is said that fairies and elves would appear if you sat under an elder on a midsummer night, that the elder possessed a potent magic with the ability to drive away witches and kill serpents. In times before literacy was normalized, herbalists would often grow an elder tree by their door or paint an elder on their sign so people would be able to find them. Elderberry syrup and an elder/ catnip/ yarrow based daphoretic tea are found in most practcing herbalists' repertoire.
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