MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 151 
The common elderberry, Sambucus canadensis, with its 
broad panicles of white flowers followed by deep purple 
fruit, is a familiar sight in eastern North America, and the 
fruit is commonly used in small quantities for wine and pie 
making. Combined with wild plums and wild apples it 
makes delicious jelly, while the addition of a few heads of 
elderberries will give crabapple jelly a beautiful rose-purple 
color without appreciably changing the flavor. 
Most of the native plums make good jam and jelly. Sev- 
eral of the better forms have been introduced into ecultiva- 
tion and are the more valuable since they will sueeceed in 
regions where no other fruit will grow. The common barberry, 
now outlawed in the West because of its relation to the wheat 
rust, is still cultivated in many parts of the country and has 
run wild in the East. In combination with other fruits it 
gives a good color and flavor to jellies, and when used alone 
it produces a clear red jelly quite like that made from red 
currants. 
The several species of wild grapes native to North America 
are excellent for jelly making, some of them being superior 
to the cultivated ones in this respect. Though they are not 
as often neglected as many of the other wild fruits, large 
quantities go to waste every year, even in thickly settled 
regions. Good grape juice can be made from the juicier kinds, 
but it is apt to have a ‘‘stemmy”’ taste and seldom equals 
that made from the eultivated varieties. /ence-rows, river- 
banks, and the edges of wocd lots are likely places to find the 
vines. 
Many different species of hawthorns are found in Mis- 
souri, and in late years some of the more handsome forms 
have been planted for the beauty of their white flowers and 
red fruit. The fruit varies in size in the different species from 
smaller than a pea to that of small plums. Those with bright 
red, medium-sized, sub-acid fruit (Crataegus mollis and 
allied species) are the best for jelly. In cooking they lose 
the unpleasant flat taste so characteristic of hawthorns and 
the jelly is much like that of ecrabapples. 
Each year the common rum cherry (Prunus serotina) pro- 
duces large quantities of red-purple fruit which is seldom 
