Photo: Willow, CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons

Elderflower

Sambucus nigra

Great creamy plates of scented blossom on a corky-barked shrub, gathered across Europe in early summer, with a tree whose every other part is unsafe raw.

Educational content, not medical or professional advice. In an emergency call your local emergency number (112 in Europe) first. Never eat a wild plant or mushroom because of a website or photo.

⚠️ Strip out all green stalk before use. The stems, leaves, bark and roots contain cyanogenic glycosides and cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.

⚠️ Never eat raw elderberries. They must be fully ripe and cooked thoroughly. Raw or unripe berries cause violent sickness.

⚠️ Some people are allergic to elder pollen, and handling large amounts of flowers can bring on sneezing, rash or asthma symptoms.

⚠️ Safety data for medicinal amounts in pregnancy and breastfeeding is lacking, so keep to occasional culinary use and ask a midwife or doctor first.

⚠️ Do not give herbal teas to babies under one year, and do not add honey to anything for a child under one year because of the risk of infant botulism.

⚠️ A fever with stiff neck, confusion, a rash that does not fade under pressure, difficulty breathing, or a fever in a baby, needs urgent medical attention, not tea.

⚠️ Persistent or serious symptoms need a doctor, not a plant. In an emergency call your local emergency services, 112 in Portugal and across the EU.

Confused with

Dwarf elder / danewort (Sambucus ebulus)

Danger: Poisonous. It causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea, and its berries have poisoned people who mistook them for elderberries.

How to tell: Dwarf elder is a herbaceous plant that dies back to the ground every winter, rarely over 150 cm, with no woody corky bark at all, and its berries stand upright rather than hanging. It stinks unpleasantly when bruised. Elder is a woody shrub or tree with corky bark and drooping berry bunches.

Rowan and other pinnate-leaved trees (Sorbus aucuparia)

Danger: Rowan is not deadly, but raw rowan berries cause sickness and the flowers are not elderflower.

How to tell: Rowan leaves are alternate, not opposite, with 11 to 19 leaflets, and its twigs have no wide white pith. Elder has opposite leaves, 5 to 7 leaflets and a thick white pith core in the twigs.

Hemlock and giant hogweed (Conium maculatum, Heracleum mantegazzianum) ☠️

Danger: Hemlock is deadly and giant hogweed causes severe burns and blistering that scar for years when its sap meets sunlight.

How to tell: Both are non-woody plants with hollow stems rising from the ground, and their white flower heads are open lacy umbrellas on spokes. Elderflower grows on a woody shrub with corky bark. If it does not grow on wood, do not pick it as elderflower.

Leaves

Opposite pairs, pinnate, the whole leaf 10 to 30 cm long and made of five to seven leaflets arranged along a central stalk with one at the tip. Each leaflet 4 to 12 cm, oval with a pointed tip and a sharply saw-toothed edge, dull dark green.

Flowers

Flat-topped or slightly domed plates 10 to 25 cm across, made of hundreds of tiny creamy-white flowers each 5 mm with five petals, held out horizontally from the branch. The whole head faces upwards and outwards, and the flowers are followed by hanging bunches of small purple-black berries.

Stem

Older bark is grey-brown, deeply corky and furrowed with raised warty lenticels. Young twigs are green, smooth and snap easily to reveal a wide core of soft white pith, which is the reliable confirmation.

Smell or taste

Sweet, heavy, muscat-like and slightly cat-like up close on a warm day, a smell you learn in one season. Do not taste any part of this tree to identify it: the leaves, bark, roots, stems and raw berries all contain cyanogenic compounds and cause vomiting and diarrhoea.

Habitat

Hedgerows, woodland edges, stream banks, waste ground, old walls and nitrogen-rich soil near farms. Common across northern and central Portugal and throughout Europe.

Preparation

Pick whole flower heads on a dry, sunny morning when most florets are open and the scent is strongest, cutting the head at the stalk. Shake out the insects; do not wash the flowers, because washing removes the scented pollen the head is worth picking for. To dry, lay the heads face down on mesh or paper in a warm, dark, airy place for one to two weeks, then rub the tiny flowers off and discard every scrap of green stalk, which carries the sickening compounds. Store the dry flowers in a sealed dark jar for up to a year. Infusion: one to two teaspoons of dried flowers in a cup of hot water, covered for ten minutes, then strained. The flowers are also traditionally steeped cold with sugar, lemon and a little citric acid for a day to make cordial, which is then strained and bottled. Never eat the leaves, bark, stems or roots, and never eat raw berries. Elderberries must be fully ripe and thoroughly cooked before they are used at all.

Traditional use

Sabugueiro is one of the old household trees of Europe, planted by the door and treated with a superstitious respect. A hot infusion of the flowers has traditionally been drunk during feverish colds and blocked-up heads across Portugal and the rest of the continent, often with a little honey, and a cooled infusion was used as a skin wash. The cordial is the summer drink of half of northern Europe. This is recorded custom and kitchen tradition, not a treatment for flu or anything else.

Harvest rule

Take no more than one flower head in four from any tree, and leave plenty, because every head you pick is a bunch of berries that birds will not get in autumn. Cut with scissors rather than tearing branches, which are brittle and break badly. Never cut down or strip a whole elder. Ask the landowner's permission, since most hedgerow elders belong to someone, and check local rules, which vary by country and restrict collecting in national parks and protected areas.

Flor de sabugueiro (PT); flor de saúco (ES)