Stalking The Wild Berries Red-berried Elder flowers will form fruit that is not edible by humans as is the black or sweet elderberry. There is a native shrub whose puffy, oblong, creamy-to-white clusters of flowers literally dot the country roadsides and farmsteads now. It is the red-berried or stinking elder whose blossoms are beautiful to the eye but whose red fruits are not to be eaten by people. Birds and perhaps some mammals safely consume the small berries but apparently have built-in immunity to these and other poisonous fruits, and even mushrooms, that people don’t possess. One indisputable quality of the elder, both black and red, is that is extremely tough and hardy. One of the red elder shrubs on our property grows along the edge of our turn-around in the front yard and its arching branches get in the way of my snow removal in winter. Each fall I cut it down to the ground and each spring, without fail, it springs back into life and provides us with interesting flowers and the birds with food. There is a very edible elder, or elderberry as so many call it, the common, black or sweet elder whose fruits are considered to be one of the most overlooked and under-used of all native fruits. In fact Euell Gibbons, one of my favorite authors, practically raves about the many uses of this widespread plant in his book, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus." This handsome tough shrub prefers wet, damp or rich soils and is not very common in our area of shallow, limy, more dryish ground. I have found it to be quite common in my home Kewaunee County. In fact I have precious memories of the elderberry wine that my Grandpa and Grandma Lukes used to make every late summer. My two older brothers, Ivan and Leo, and I looked forward to being at our grandparents’ home with other company and being served a small glass of their elderberry wine. I have a sneaking suspicion that today’s connoisseurs of fine wine might have tasted my grandparents’ wine and referred to it as elderberry "whine!" Surely my grandparents, being extremely expedient all their lives, made use of that fruit simply because it was so highly available, easy to find and safe to use. Little did they know that wild elderberries are extremely rich in vitamin C and, having incorporated yeast into the wine-making process, undoubtedly was also a good source for some of the B vitamins. One might say that, consuming too much of this wine builds you up as it "tears" you down! The black elderberries have been safely made into pies, jams and wine for centuries. However the fruits of the red elder are considered to be unfit for human consumption even though W.C. Muenscher, in his book, "Poisonous Plants of the United States," claims that definite evidence of the poisonous properties of red elderberries is lacking. My strong suggestion is to not consume them in any form. Leave them for the birds. The scientific (Latin) name of the elder is Sambucus (sam-BYOU-cus), perhaps from the Greek sambuce, an ancient musical instrument, because of the readily removed tubes of bark once used for flutes and whistles. The pithy centers of the branches are easily pushed out with a thin metal rod and, years ago, these hollow tubes were also used for tapping sugar maple trees to collect the sap in spring. A common complaint and disappointment of those who transform the freshly picked clusters of the dark fruits of the common elder into pies or jams is that the final product, to some people, is downright nauseating, having what is sometimes described as a rank eldery flavor. The very simple remedy for this shortcoming of the widely available native fruit is to dehydrate the berries before making into jam and other foods. More and more home-owners are incorporating elderberry shrubs, especially some of the interesting cultivars, into their landscaping schemes. The European elderberry, Sambucus nigra, is an earlier bloomer, slightly less hardy then the native American species and is also taller than our S. canadensis, 30 feet compared to around 10 to 12 feet. But remember that cutting these shrubs back hard in early spring makes them somewhat shorter and more manageable. Popular cultivars of the European species are "Madonna," a brightly colored yellow variegated form, and "Aurea," a yellow leaf form. In case you are more interested in fruit production, consider cultivars of the American species that have purplish-black fruit, forms such as "Johns," "Kent," "Nova," "York" and "Victoria," noted for unusually good fruit. Euell Gibbons, in his book, "Stalking the Good Life," had this to say about eating wild fruits including elderberries: "They give nourishment to my body, taste thrills to my palate, and food for my soul. Thank God for wild berries." This column appeared in the Door County Advocate on 06/07/2003. © Copyright 2003 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.