Plant · P-462

Elderberry European

Sambucus nigra

European elder is a fast-growing, multi-stemmed shrub or small tree native to Europe, North Africa and western Asia, now naturalized widely elsewhere. It gives two harvests off one plant - flowers in early summer for cordial, fritters, tea and wine, and fruit later for jam, preserves, pies, sauce and wine - though the leaves and stems are poisonous and the fruit has to be cooked, since raw or unripe berries upset most people. Beyond food, it is an unusually generous plant: the flowers have long-standing medicinal use for coughs and colds, the leaves make a natural insect and fungus spray plus a compost activator, and the fruit, bark and leaves each yield a different dye. Left alone it spreads by root suckers and bird-scattered seed into a thicket, which is exactly what makes it useful as a fast, self-renewing hedge if it's cut back hard every year.