Skip to content

Your account

With an account, your progress (modules read, XP, badges, cards, notebook, pack, challenges) follows you on every device. Without one, it stays in this browser.

or
Low toxicity🍽️ Edible💊 Medicinal

🌳 Elderberry

Sambucus nigra · Adoxaceae (formerly Caprifoliaceae)

🌳 Temperate Europe🫒 Mediterranean
🧠 To remember it“Elderberry: eat the flower raw, eat the berry only cooked” — the simple rule to save any hurried foragers from a bout of nausea.
Elderberry — Sambucus nigra

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Fast-growing shrub or small tree, soft wood with abundant white pith inside the branches (very easy to spot in cross-section). Opposite compound leaves with 5-7 toothed leaflets that smell unpleasant when crushed. Large flat clusters of cream-white, highly fragrant flowers, followed by shiny purple-black berries, hanging in wide bunches when ripe.

  1. abundant spongy white pith inside young branches
  2. opposite compound leaves with 5-7 toothed leaflets
  3. large flat clusters of fragrant cream-white flowers
  4. shiny black berries in hanging bunches when ripe
  5. unpleasant smell from crushed leaves
Size2-6 m
Floweringmai-juin
Habitathedgerows, woodland edges, wasteland, rubble, nitrogen-rich soils

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Dwarf elder (herbaceous, not to be confused) (Sambucus ebulus)forte (dwarf elder is toxic and a severe purgative)

To tell them apart: dwarf elder is a non-woody herbaceous plant that dies back every winter (black elderberry is a perennial woody shrub), its berry clusters point upright instead of hanging, and its flowers have purple anthers instead of cream-yellow

Red dogwood (Cornus sanguinea)raw elderberry should also be avoided, but cooked it becomes edible

To tell them apart: opposite pinnate compound leaves on elderberry versus simple leaves on dogwood; elderberry stems have soft white pith

American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)much lower toxicity for elderberry (edible when cooked)

To tell them apart: pokeweed berries grow on a single upright-then-drooping spike with a thick purple stem, while elderberry bears its berries in large compound flat-topped clusters on a branched woody shrub; pokeweed stems are never woody

🍽️ Eating it

Partsflowers, cooked ripe berries
Seasonmai-juin (flowers), août-septembre (berries)
Tastefloral and musky flower; cooked berry is tart, close to blackcurrant

Preparation : raw flowers in fritters or syrup (elderflower cordial); berries MUST be cooked (at least 65°C) because raw they contain sambunigrin, an irritating cyanogenic glucoside that causes nausea and diarrhea — cooking neutralizes it completely

73kcalEnergy
0.66gProtein
0.5gFat
18.4gCarbs
36mgVitamin C

approx, raw berry, closest available USDA item for Sambucus nigra; always consume cooked

💊 Healing with it

flowers are traditionally diaphoretic (promotes sweating) for flu-like symptoms and mild colds; berries are rich in anthocyanins, studied for shortening the duration of flu symptoms

Level of evidence : tradition for the flower (recognized EMA/HMPC); etudes-limitees for standardized berry extract on flu (small-scale clinical trials, promising results but not definitive) — EMA/HMPC, community herbal monograph Sambuci flos

⚠️ never consume raw berries, seeds, bark, or leaves (cyanogenic glucosides); always cook the berries

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • stems hollowed of their pith were traditionally used to make rustic whistles and flutes
  • hard wood once the pith is removed, used in small woodwork
  • shrub considered protective in European folklore ("the witch's tree" that you wouldn't cut down without respect)
Sources (3)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.