Bunchberry elder, a smooth, many-stemmed shrub, usually l 1 /^ to 6% feet 

 high, with small, rather compact, rounded clusters of red fruits, is one of 

 the smallest and most common of the western elders in the central Rocky 

 Mountain and Intermountain regions. Both the common and the specific names 

 refer to the compact fruit clusters; mioi-obotrys is Latinized from the Greek, 

 mikro-, small, and botrus, a cluster of grapes. This species ranges from south- 

 western Montana to South Dakota, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada, and 

 possibly extends into northeastern California. It occurs chiefly on moist 

 sites in the mountains of the upper ponderosa pine, aspen, spruce, and sub- 

 alpine belts. Bunchberry elder grows commonly in meadows and parks, in 

 small openings in timber, and similar sunny situations, but is also occasionally 

 found in scattered aspen. This shrub, although very common, is generally 

 scattered, only rarely occurring in dense, but small, patches. 



Bunchberry elder is one of the more palatable elders for use in the summer, 

 when it is browsed rather extensively by cattle, sheep, and goats, as well as 

 by elk and deer. After the first frosts the palatability is somewhat higher 

 than in summer, rating from fairly good to good for cattle and fairly good 

 to very good for sheep. The fruits, leaves, twigs, and sometimes even the 

 large stems are cropped. This shrub is usually low enough so that grazing 

 animals have ready access to the herbage. Ease of procurement combined 

 with its high palatability and common occurrence make the species one of the 

 important browse plants within its range. The bright red fruits are consumed 

 by birds and other animals, but are unpalatable to man. Buuchberry elder 

 is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental. 



Blackbead elder (S. melanocar' pa) , known locally as mountain elder (berry), 

 a smooth shrubby species commonly from 3 to 10 feet high, occurs chiefly in 

 moist sites in the mountains from British Columbia to California, New Mexico, 

 Colorado, and Alberta. It is probably the species of elder most likely to be 

 associated and confused with bunchberry elder. During the fruiting season, 

 however, it is readily distinguished by its black fruits, to which the common 

 name, blackbead elder, alludes. The flower clusters of this species are rounded 

 and slightly larger and more open than those of bunchberry elder. The leaflets, 

 about 2 to 6 inches long, are abruptly long-taper-pointed as contrasted with the 

 somewhat smaller, shorter-pointed leaves of bunchberry elder. Blackbead elder 

 is generally distributed in the ponderosa pine and Engelmann spruce-lodgepole 

 pine belts, and, although fairly abundant, it is seldom the dominant species. 1 

 For summer use it is poor to fair cattle browse and fair to fairly good sheep 

 browse in some places, but in other localities this species is practically worth- 

 less for all classes of livestock. After the advent of frost, however, the palata- 

 bility is fairly good to good for cattle and good to very good for sheep. 1 



The origin of the name Sambucus for the elders, or elderberries, is con- 

 troversial. The usual explanation is that it is probably derived from the 

 Greek sambuke, a musical instrument perhaps because the pithy stems were 

 used by shepherds and others to fashion rustic pipes, or flutes. Gerard 2 re- 

 gards this etymology as erroneous. He indicates that the Greek plant name 

 sampsuchon, used by Dioscorides, originally applied to a totally different plant 

 (sweet marjoram, Origanum majorana), and that some corruption of samp- 

 suchon has been used ever since the eleventh century to refer to the elders. 

 Sambucus is one of these corruptions and was adopted by Tournefort in 1719 as 

 the generic name for elder. The genus, which embraces about 42 species of 

 shrubs, small trees, or rarely herbs, belongs to the honeysuckle family (Capri- 

 foliaceae). It is widely distributed in temperate and subtropical regions. Of 

 about 14 species native to the United States, all but 3 species occur in the 

 West. The characters of elders which permit of easy recognition are : Opposite 

 branches; distinctively pithy young stems; opposite, odd-pinnately divided 

 leaves with toothed leafllets ; numerous small, whitish flowers borne in showy 

 flat-topped or pyramidal clusters, and small, red, bluish or black, berrylike 

 fruits. 



1 Dayton, W. A. IMPORTANT WESTERN BROWSE PLANTS. U. S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Pub. 

 101, 214 pp., illus. 1931. 



2 Gerard, W. It. ORIGIN OF THE NAME SAMBUCUS. Garden and Forest 8 : 368. 1895. 



