148 MISC. PUBLICATION 101, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
the form of a small tree. It ranges from southern British Columbia 
to California, Arizona, and Alberta, in foothills, in pifon, and in 
open yellow pine and aspen, occurring scatteringly in general but 
commonly along streams, in canyons, and on moist flats and slopes, 
in sandy or clayey loam, often in association with serviceberry, 
chokecherry, bromegrass, and wheatgrass. In California, where it 
is the common foothill elder, it occurs from sea level to 5,500 feet 
(67); in the Northwest (including Idaho), from sea level to about 
4,000 feet; and in Utah and Nevada mostly between 5,500 and 9,000 
feet. 
The copious white flowers, borne in broad, flattened clusters, appear 
in the mountains from July to early or middle August, but in the 
foothills and other lower elevations from May to June. The rela- 
tively large, sky-blue, berrylike fruits usually begin to ripen about 
the middle of August and are disseminated from mid-August 
through October, depending on altitude, latitude, and season. 
Blueberry elder is worthless for cattle and worthless to poor 
browse for sheep in the spring. In the summer its palatability is 
sometimes fair to fairly good for both sheep and cattle. From the 
time the berries ripen until after the first frost the palatability rises 
rapidly, the fruit, foliage, and twigs being eaten; the frosted herbage 
has good to excellent palatability for sheep and is at least fairly good 
for cattle. Despite this high palatability in fall, however, this spe- 
cies is frequently handicapped in value by being highly localized 
or scant in stand and sometimes also by being largely out of reach 
of grazing animals, especially sheep. 
American elder (S. canadensis), a good-sized eastern bush, gets 
as far west as Saskatchewan, Colorado, and western Texas. Its 
palatability in fall is about equal to that of S. caerulea, but as a 
rule it is not so abundant in the Western States as it is in its more 
native haunts. The flowers of this species are medicinal (78, 60, 62). 
The root is highly poisonous. 
Mexican elder (S. mexicana, syn. S. canadensis mexicana), a 
closely related species with edible fruit and relatively small leaves, 
is found along river valleys at low elevations from western Texas 
to southern Arizona and south into Mexico; it is, with the possible 
exception of S. caerulea, the largest western elder, often becoming 
a good-sized tree well out of reach of Hvestock. 
New Mexican elder (S. neomexicana, syn. S. glauca neomexicana), 
canyon elder (S. vestita), and velvet (leaf) elder (S. velutina, syn. 
S. caerulea velutina) are other commen western blue-black-berried, 
flat-clustered elders. The neomexicana species is found in New 
Mexico and Colorado in moist to wet sites in the mountains; the 
vestita, a common bush in canyons, in southern New Mexico and 
Arizona; and the velutina, a finely and densely pubescent, rather 
showy species, in relatively dry foothills and open mountain slopes 
in California and western Nevada. All of these have limited browse 
utility. 
OTHER SPECIES 
On the whole those western species of elder with pyramidal (thyr- 
soid) flower and fruit clusters (panicles) and, with one exception, 
red or reddish fruit, are of the greatest forage importance because 
of their greater number and generally greater range abundance. 
