Tree of the month: September 2023 - Elder

The Elder can grow to a height of 15 metres and live up to 60 years. The bark is greybrown and deeply ridged. Elder grows particularly well where nitrogen levels in the soil are high from the presence of organic matter - farmyards, churchyards, badger sets and rabbit warrens for example.

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​It is a quick coloniser, often spreading from seeds ejected by small and large mammals and birds that have been feasting on its autumn berries.

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​All parts - the wood, leaves, flowers and berries -have a very distinctive scent. There are some more decorative varieties that can be grown in gardens or parks. Sambucus ‘Black Lace’ is one with deep purple leaves.

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Wildlife value of Elder:
Some rodents, including Bank-voles, Dormice, Badgers and Squirrels will eat both the flowers and berries of the Elder tree.

The large, flat flower-heads of early summer provide pollen and nectar for many insects and the rich autumn berries are a great food for many birds through autumn, including Thrush, Blackbird, Warblers and Wood Pigeons.

Animals and birds eating the berries then scatter the hard seeds far and wide through their droppings, which helps to spread this common tree around new sites.

Often unnoticed by us one of the great wildlife values of Elder, as with many other plants and trees, is the food they provide for the caterpillars of several species of moths. The Elder is a host tree for the Dot, the beautiful Buff Ermine and the Swallowtail among others.

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Food and drink:
Elderflowers have long been gathered to make cordial or the ‘country champagne’ sparkling Elderflower. The natural yeasts on the flowers produce the ‘fizz’. Commonly available in shops these are also easy to make using just a few, fresh heads of flowers.

The berries, rich in vitamin C, can be used to make a syrup called ‘Elderberry Rob’ which can also be diluted for a nutritious, tasty, healthy drink, hot or cold. The fruit can also be used to make jelly, jam, chutney, wine, or be put in pies.

NOTE: All green parts of the plant are toxic, as are the unripe fruits which can be metabolised by our bodies to produce small quantities of cyanide so make sure they are ripe - they are safe when cooked.

Insect repellent: The strong scent meant it was used as a strewing herb on floors, hung on horses manes and planted outside dairies to deter flies and fleas.

Herbal uses: Known as the “medicine chest of the people” the elder has long been used to treat many conditions, especially coughs and chest complaints, from a tea made of the flowers. Juice from the berries has microbial properties. Elder has been made into a cream to treat chilblains, bruises and wounds.

John Evelyn, the 17th century diarist, claimed it worked “against all infirmities” which may have been rather overstating the case!

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Other uses for Elder Wood:
Elder wood is creamy-white and hard and has been used to make small toys, combs, wooden spoons, pegs, skewers and several sorts of musical instruments, including chanters, whistles and pipes. The ancient Greek, Pliny the Elder, talks of elder wood being used to make the sackbut - an early instrument whose name derives from Sambucus, now the scientific name for Elder. Both Pliny (AD 77) and Culpeper (17th century) refer to the frequent use of Elder by children to make pop-guns and peashooters and the twigs are also easily made into straws.

The common name for Elder was Bore-wood from to the soft pith that runs through Elder twigs and branches. The ease with which this pith can be removed, to hollow out a straight length of elder twig or branch, has led to many of the above uses. It’s fun to do with children, though needs careful use of a skewer, pointed stick or piece of metal so it’s best to help young children do this or first let them watch while you learn how to do it!

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Use of Elder pith: The soft pith has been used to hold botanical specimens while they are being sectioned and to make fishing floats.

Elder pith was also used to remove oil from the tips of tools to prevent contamination of watch movements.

Dyeing with Elder: Elder is a valuable source of dyes. Traditional Harris Tweed was dyed using a range of parts of the tree. The berries create a bluepurple range of colours, the leaves yield yellow and green and the bark, dark browns and black.

The symbolism of Elder: Because it can grow readily from dropped seeds the Elder is associated with regeneration, birth and death, transformations and also the crossing of thresholds. Countryfolk thought you should plant Rowan by your front door and Elder by your back door to provide maximum protection from harmful spirits. The fact that the wood spits when burnt also led it to be associated with the devil. There was a taboo on burning Elder.

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Myths and Legends of Elder:
White flowers were often associated with ‘Faeries’ and the Elder is no exception. One of the best places to encounter a fairy was believed to be beneath an Elder tree on Midsummers-Eve. That was the time the King and Queen of the Faeries were thought to process-by but falling asleep under an Elder was felt to bring bad luck, maybe because the smell can be slightly toxic. And the taboo against burning Elder wood may be because a little cyanide gas could be released from the burning wood.

The Anglo-Saxons and Druids held Elder to be a sacred tree - the tree of the thirteenth month, associated with Samhain, or Halloween. This was symbolically the end of the agricultural year and when the veil between the living and the dead was believed to be at its thinnest.

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The Elder in literature:
Hans Christian Anderson’s story “The Elder-tree Mother” begins with a boy drinking elderflower tea, when an Elder tree grows out of the teapot.

Ancient legend links the Elder with the tree on which Jesus was hanged. An anonymous classic poem goes:
“Bourtree, bourtree, crookit rung,
Never straight and never strong,
Ever bush and never tree
Since our Lord was nailed to thee”
Subsequently Shakespeare, in Love’s Labours Lost, popularised this association of the Elder with the tree on which Jesus was hanged. However, in Cymbeline he associates the “stinking elder” with grief:
“And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine,
His perishing root with the increasing vine”.

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Wordsworth, in The Kitten, was rather more whimsical:
“See the kitten on the wall, sporting with the leaves that fall
Withered leaves - one, two and three, from the lofty elder tree
Through the calm and frosty air, of this morning bright & fair”.