852 



The Elders 



with saccharine matter they are fermented into "elder-flower wine." The dried 

 flowers are used in decoction as a diaphoretic. The fruit is likewise made into 

 wine, and when mixed with some acidulous fruit, as apples, is made into pies and 

 jelUes. The woody stems with the large pith removed have been used as tubes, 

 especially for tapping maple-sugar trees. The bark and root are said to be 

 poisonous. 



5. BLUEBERRIED ELDER Sambucus glauca Nuttall 



This handsome tree, reaching a maximum height of about 15 meters, with a 

 trunk diameter of 4.5 dm., occurs from the mountain valleys of Utah north to 

 Montana and Vancouver island, and west to southern California. It is often a 

 broad spreading shrub, also called Pale elderberry, Mountain elder, Black elder- 

 berry, and Elder. 



The trunk is rather tall and straight, the spreading branches forming a round 



top. The dark brownish 

 bark is deeply fissured and 

 broken into small angular 

 scales. The twigs, at first 

 green and sparingly hairy, 

 become light brown and 

 smooth, and are filled with 

 a thick white pith. The 

 leaves are yellowish green 

 on the upper side, paler be- 

 neath, smooth when mature, 

 thick and firm in texture; 

 they have a grooved leaf- 

 stalk and are often sub- 

 tended by leaf-like stipules; 

 the 5 to 7 stalked leaflets 

 are 8 to 12 cm, long, lan- 

 ceolate to oblong, more or 

 less taper-pointed, sharply 

 toothed, and somewhat unequally rounded or narrowed at the base; the lower pair 

 of leaflets are often more or less pinnately divided. The flowers are borne in 

 rather open, usually 5-rayed flattish cymes i to 1.5 dm. across, the corolla 4 to 6 

 mm. broad and deeply cleft into 5 broadly oval lobes. The subglobose fruit is 

 large, often 7 mm. in diameter, bluish black and covered with a whitish bloom, 

 sweet and juicy. 



The wood is soft, weak, and coarsely graned, dark yellow-brown, with a 

 specific gravity of about 0.50. The fruit is '^robably the best in quaUty of any 

 of the American ciders and is much used f o ; pies, jelly and wine. It is planted 



Fig. 775. Blueberried Elder. 



