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Red elder

Robert Flogaus-Faust / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0

Red elder

Sambucus racemosa

Also called red elderberry, this is a deciduous shrub or small tree native across North America and Europe: in North America from Alaska and Yukon to Labrador and Newfoundland, south to California and New Mexico and, in the mountains, to North Carolina and Georgia. It grows in moist woods, stream banks, forest gaps and mountain openings, 8 to 12 feet tall in gardens and up to about 20 feet in the wild, with large, deeply divided leaves, dome-shaped clusters of tiny white flowers early in spring as the leaves unfold, and bright red berries in summer that birds strip quickly. Know its hazards before planting: the USDA Forest Service's Fire Effects Information System (Fryer 2008) says the fruits and seeds may cause vomiting and diarrhea, especially when not fully ripe, and that other parts of the plant may be poisonous year-round. It is a plant of cool, moist sites; FEIS says it tolerates warm climates less well than blue elderberry.

Native: 38 US states + 7 CA provinces

Climate fit: broad (79/100)

Border

Focal point

Structure

Light

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Water

Consistent moisture

Mature size

8-12 ft tall · 8 ft apart

Hardy in zones

3a-7b

brutally cold to cold winters

Life cycle

Perennial

Native in Illinois

Yes

Related products

Cold hardiness

These values are location-based: this location's current hardiness is the baseline, and the 2050 value is a projected future climate for this same location.

Now

Zone 6b

Plotwright

USDA Zone 6b

-5°F to 0°F

Well-suited

2050

2100

Zone 7a

Plotwright

0°F to 5°F

Well-suited

In plain terms: This location has cold winters. Its winters are projected to keep warming through 2050.

✓

Well-suited today and still thriving in 2050.

Heat tolerance

Heat tolerance values are location-based too: heat days today are observed at this site, and the 2050 value projects this same location under a future climate.

Loading AHS heat-zone data for this location...

Where this plant fits

Suitable across 35 ecoregions - 27 climate-resilient through 2070 · 5 suited today · 3 newly possible by 2070. Best matches first.

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests

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Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

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Arizona Mountains forests

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Atlantic coastal pine barrens

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Blue Mountains forests

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Central Tallgrass prairie

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Central-Southern Cascades Forests

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Chilean Matorral

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Colorado Rockies forests

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Cross-Timbers savanna-woodland

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What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Water

Consistent moisture

Spacing

8 ft

Habit

Deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub or small tree with soft, pithy, somewhat sprawling branches; it spreads by root suckers into colonies, and some wild populations are rhizomatous and form thickets. The foliage, branches and flowers smell unpleasant when crushed

Care tips

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Give it a cool, moist spot: FEIS says it is less tolerant of warm climates than blue elderberry and keeps to cool, moist sites in the south of its range.

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Never eat the berries raw, and keep children away from the shrub; FEIS says the fruit and seeds may cause vomiting and diarrhea and other parts may be poisonous.

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Pull suckers as they appear unless you want a colony, as the Missouri Botanical Garden advises.

Lifecycle

Planting

Plant it in deep, moist, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade, as the Missouri Botanical Garden advises; it prefers humus-rich, nutrient-rich loam that is neutral to slightly acid, and the best foliage comes in full sun. FEIS finds it in the wild on deep, well-drained loams ranging from acidic to basic, with neutral soils preferred, and on cool, moist sites: riparian zones, wet meadows, and mountain openings where snow lies late.

Transplanting

Plant out young stock in spring or early summer: Plants For A Future says pot-grown seedlings go to their permanent places in early summer if they have grown well, otherwise the following spring. No source here gives advice on moving an established shrub; FEIS notes that it sprouts back from the root crown after it is cut or burned.

Early growth

Keep it moist while it establishes. The Missouri Botanical Garden gives medium to wet water needs, and FEIS describes a plant that prefers moist, nutrient-rich sites and is classed as a facultative wetland species. FEIS adds that sprouts grow fast, and that sprouts from rhizomes can flower in their second year.

Maturity

The Missouri Botanical Garden gives 8 to 12 feet tall and 8 to 15 feet wide in gardens; FEIS gives 7 to 20 feet in the wild, as a single shrub, a small tree, a clump or a thicket. The record follows the Missouri Botanical Garden for garden size. It suggests late-winter pruning: taking out dead or weak stems, shortening one-year stems, or cutting some stems to the ground to renew the plant, and pulling suckers unless you are naturalizing it. It lists canker, powdery mildew, leaf spot, borers, spider mites and aphids as possible problems, and branches that break in high wind or under heavy snow and ice. FEIS notes that the leaves are sensitive to ozone pollution.

Propagation

FEIS says red elder is easily started from cuttings and is often grown from seed. The seed is dormant, held by an immature embryo and a hard coat: fresh seed sown in an unheated greenhouse germinated nearly 100% after overwintering, warm then cold stratification also works, and in the field germination can take 2 years. Plants For A Future gives the same picture (sow fresh seed in autumn in a cold frame; give stored seed 2 months warm then 2 months cold) and suggests half-ripe cuttings 3 to 4 inches long with a heel in July or August, or mature-wood cuttings 6 to 8 inches long in late autumn.

Pollination

Needs cross-pollination

FEIS describes red elder as outcrossing, with flowers pollinated by bees, flies and wind, and says it usually bears a good seed crop every year in the wild; Plants For A Future notes that each flower has both male and female parts. No source here says how well a lone shrub sets fruit, so plant more than one if you want a reliable crop of berries for the birds.

Plants don't grow alone

Pollen forage

Fly

Hover flies (flower flies) (Syrphidae)

FEIS says various fly species eat the pollen, without naming them; hover flies are the familiar pollen-feeding flies at open flower clusters across its range.

Fruit forage

Bird

Eastern songbirds (multi-species) (multiple species (Passeriformes))

FEIS reports that at least 50 songbird (passerine) species and 6 game bird species eat the fruit in the Northeast, and that birds nest and perch in the shrub.

Fruit forage

Bird

American robin (Turdus migratorius)

In an Alaskan study FEIS cites, American robins ate the fruit and passed the seed, which then germinated faster and better than uneaten seed.

Fruit forage

Bird

Varied thrush (Ixoreus naevius)

In the same Alaskan study FEIS cites, seed eaten by varied thrushes germinated best of all (31%, against 19% after American robins).

Foliage forage

Mammal

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

FEIS says browsing can be heavy where white-tailed deer are numerous, that red elder does not tolerate heavy browsing and has declined in parts of Michigan with dense deer populations, and that it was moderately palatable to white-tailed deer in a Wisconsin feeding trial. The Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as resistant to deer browse; the record follows FEIS.

Shelter / habitat

Bee

Stem-nesting native bees (multiple genera (Ceratina, Hylaeus, Osmia, etc.))

The Wildflower Center, citing the Xerces Society, says red elder provides nesting materials or structure for native bees; FEIS describes its soft, pithy stems, the kind stem-nesting bees hollow out.

For people

Toxic - do not consume

Do not eat any part raw. The USDA Forest Service's Fire Effects Information System (Fryer 2008) says the fruits and/or seeds may cause diarrhea and vomiting in people, especially if the fruit is not fully ripe, that other parts of the plant may be poisonous year-round, and that the foliage contains cyanide. The Wildflower Center warns that the stems, roots and foliage are poisonous and calls the berries reputedly poisonous. The fruit does have a culinary history: FEIS and the Missouri Botanical Garden say it is sour and not usually eaten raw but is cooked into pies, jelly and wine, and Native Americans used it as food. Neither says cooking makes it safe, so the record treats the plant as toxic. The ASPCA list has no entry for Sambucus, so the risk to pets is not rated here.

Native range

Native across 38 US states + 7 CA provinces.

Worldwide native range.

Native ecoregions

Naturally belongs in 36 ecoregions - its native range crosses a state or province each one spans (not necessarily this exact habitat).

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests

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Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

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Arizona Mountains forests

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Atlantic coastal pine barrens

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Blue Mountains forests

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California coastal sage and chaparral

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Canadian Aspen forests and parklands

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Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

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Central Tallgrass prairie

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Central-Southern Cascades Forests

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Climate notes

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The Missouri Botanical Garden lists red elder for USDA hardiness zones 3 to 7 (3a-7b), and its culture notes say winter hardy to zones 3 to 6 or 7. Plants For A Future gives zones 4 to 8 on a page that treats the American red elder (the variety pubens). No second source states 3a-7b; the record follows the Missouri Botanical Garden because its range fits the primary account: FEIS (Fryer 2008) describes a plant reaching Alaska, Yukon and Labrador that is less tolerant of warm climates than blue elderberry.

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FEIS says it is rare in arid regions and, in the south of its range, confined to cool, moist riparian zones, swamps and mountains; in the East it grows mostly at high elevations. In Arizona it is known only from the San Francisco Peaks and the Grand Canyon.

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The native range here is taken from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the dataset POWO publishes: Alaska (including the Aleutians), Yukon and every Canadian province from British Columbia east to Labrador, Newfoundland and the Maritimes; the western United States from Washington and Montana south to California, Arizona and New Mexico; the northern and eastern United States from North Dakota to Maine, south to Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia; and Europe from Spain and France east to European Russia and the North Caucasus. WCVP records it as introduced in Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Kazakhstan, Bolivia and the South Island of New Zealand.

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FEIS gives the North American range as Alaska and Yukon south to California, New Mexico, South Dakota, Missouri and Georgia, and east to Quebec, Newfoundland, Maine and North Carolina, with the purplish-black-fruited Rocky Mountain variety (var. melanocarpa) from British Columbia and Alberta south to California, New Mexico and North Dakota. The Wildflower Center state and province list agrees with the WCVP range in the United States.

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Outside its native range it has naturalized in northern Europe and New Zealand (WCVP). In North America FEIS calls it a valuable and somewhat rare wildlife plant that seldom needs control, and USDA PLANTS gives it no invasive or noxious status.

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Bloom time runs with latitude and elevation. FEIS says it flowers early in spring as the leaves unfold, with regional records of late April to early June in the Carolinas, May in Ohio and May to July in Alaska and northern Idaho, and fruit ripening from early to late summer; the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Wildflower Center give May to June, and Plants For A Future June to July.

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On soil, FEIS reports acidic to basic soils with neutral preferred, the Missouri Botanical Garden neutral to slightly acidic loam, and Plants For A Future mildly acid to mildly alkaline soil.

Similar plants

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Hydrangea quercifolia

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Chinese Fringe Flower

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Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

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Shrub

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Educator packet

Plant packet

Red elder educator packet

Also called red elderberry, this is a deciduous shrub or small tree native across North America and Europe: in North America from Alaska and Yukon to Labrador and Newfoundland, south to California and New Mexico and, in the mountains, to North Carolina and Georgia. It grows in moist woods, stream banks, forest gaps and mountain openings, 8 to 12 feet tall in gardens and up to about 20 feet in the wild, with large, deeply divided leaves, dome-shaped clusters of tiny white flowers early in spring as the leaves unfold, and bright red berries in summer that birds strip quickly. Know its hazards before planting: the USDA Forest Service's Fire Effects Information System (Fryer 2008) says the fruits and seeds may cause vomiting and diarrhea, especially when not fully ripe, and that other parts of the plant may be poisonous year-round. It is a plant of cool, moist sites; FEIS says it tolerates warm climates less well than blue elderberry.

Scientific name

Sambucus racemosa

Plant type

shrub

Hardiness

3a-7b

Light

full-sun, part-sun, part-shade

Moisture

consistent

Spacing

8 ft