Everybody is familiar with the Elder, with its large corymbs of white
flowers, hanging over ditches and watercourses, rivalling the linden in
sweetness and equalling the balm in its healing virtues. It is common in
all wet fallows, flowering in the latter part of June. No shrub is so
generally known, both as a tenant of the fields and as an ingredient in
the packages of the simpler. We have seen its dried flowers in nice
paper bags, neatly done up by some benevolent hands for the benefit of
the sick, and we breathed their odors as they were wafted from the
vessel in which they were steeped, before we ever saw them in the
fields. The Elder is one of the flowering shrubs that first attracts our
attention after the blossoms of the orchard have faded. The bee is seen
to hunt for it before the vine is in blossom, leaving the flowers of the
garden for these abundant stores of native sweets. In autumn we have
seen the fences and brooksides laden with its fruit, while the purple
clusters were stripped day after day by the robin and catbird, until not
one was left to fall to the ground. When the leaves are gone, the
branches are sought by children, who use its hollow wood for making
various juvenile implements.
“The Elder,” says Barnard, speaking of the English plant, “is common,
almost universal, in cottage gardens, hedge-rows, and ruins. It is in
fact a thoroughly domesticated tree, and seldom is it found in England
far from human habitation, although I have seen it in the wildest
valleys of the Pyrenees, when it appeared to have the richest scarlet
berries, instead of black.” The species seen in the Pyrenees is probably
identical with the American panicled Elder, a rare species in New
England, bearing its flowers in spikes, and producing scarlet berries.
The Elder has not much beauty when unadorned either with flowers or
fruit. Its pinnate leaves are of a dull green, and seldom add any tints
to the glory of autumn. Its flowers, borne in large flat cymes, are very
showy, and emit a peculiar though agreeable odor, and are used in Europe
to give to wine the flavor of Frontignac. The berries of the European
Elder, which is believed by Michaux to be the same as the American
common Elder, differing only in its superior size, are said to be
poisonous to poultry. But the fruit of the American shrub possesses no
such properties. It is eagerly devoured by the insectivorous birds, and
is used in the manufacture of a harmless dietetic wine, whose benefits
have been very generally appreciated by nostrum venders.