''Sambucus canadensis'', the American black elderberry, Canada elderberry, or common elderberry, is a species of elderberry native to a large area of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, south to Bolivia. It grows in a variety of conditions including both wet and dry soils, primarily in sunny locations.

Description

It is a deciduous suckering

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

growing to tall. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are arranged in opposite pairs, pinnate with five to nine leaflets, the leaflets around long and 5 cm broad. In summer, it bears large ( diameter) corymbs of white flowers above the foliage, the individual flowers diameter, with five petals. The fruit (known as an elderberry) is a dark purple to black

berry A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, raspb ...

3–5 mm diameter, produced in drooping clusters in the fall.

Taxonomy

It is closely related to the European '' Sambucus nigra''. Some authors treat it as conspecific, under the name ''Sambucus nigra'' subsp. ''canadensis''.

Toxicity

Inedible parts of the plant, such as the leaves, stems, roots, seeds and unripe fruits, can be toxic at lethal doses due to the presence of cyanogenic glycosides and alkaloids. Traditional methods of consuming elderberry includes jams, jellies, and syrups, all of which cook down the fruit and strain out the seeds. Unpublished research may show that ''S. canadensis'' (American elderberry) has lower cyanide levels than apple juice, and that its fruit does not contain enough beta-glucosidase (which convert glucosides into cyanide) to create cyanide within that biochemical pathway. For comparisons, assuming ''S. nigra'' has levels of no more than 25 micrograms of cyanogenic glycosides/milligram of berry weight, assuming all of the glycosides were converted to cyanide, and assuming a toxicity of 50 mg for a 50 kg vertebrate, one would need to eat 2 kilograms (~4.4 pounds) of berries in one sitting to reach the lower limits of lethal toxicity (1 mg cyanide/kg of weight). For the upper limits (3 mg/kg), one would need to eat 6 kg or ~13 pounds.

Uses

The flower, known as elderflower, is edible, as are the ripe berries. A drink can be made from soaking the flower heads in water for eight hours. Other uses for the fruit include wine, jelly and dye. The leaves and inner bark can be used as an

insecticide Insecticides are substances used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and by consumers. Insecticides are claimed to b ...

and a dye. The leaves are also traditionally used topically in herbalism. The genus name comes from the Greek word ''sambuce'', an ancient wind instrument, in reference to the removal of pith from the twigs of this and other species to make whistles. The boiled inner bark of the elderberry was used by the Iroquois of North America as a pain-reliever in tooth-aches, being applied to the side of the cheek that was most virulent.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1640817 canadensis Flora of North America Flora of South America Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Berries Bird food plants Edible plants Medicinal plants of North America