Elder Tree 

Distinctive features

1. Elder fruit are purple-black round berries that grow in bunches.

2. Each flower head is flat topped, creamy white and multi-floreted. The heads are dotted around the tree.

3. Elder trees have short, thin, multiple trunks.

4. The bark of elder trees have deep furrows and ridges when they are old.

To remember the distinctive and main features of a elder tree, use the following mnemonic:

See an elderly (elder tree) gentleman with a very scraggy, furrowed face (the bark can be deeply furrowed) using two walking sticks. It looks like four trunks holding him up (short, thin, multiple trunks). This man is pulling one cart with a flat, creamy white flower head and one cart with a single, giant purple black berry.

Main Features of an Elder Tree.

1. The elder tree berries hang in thick bunches and are purple-black, round and sour. Elder berries should not be consumed raw. The berries have tiny seeds in them which are toxic which will make you ill but not drop-down-dead. The berries, however, when heated or fermented breaks down the toxin into harmless compounds and is used to make wine.

2. Flowers are creamy white and highly scented with a sweet, honey like fragrance. The flowers are all held out on little flower stalks to the same height, so all the small flowers appear as one large, flat topped bloom. The flower heads are dotted around the tree, with each head consisting of hundreds of florets. The flowers heads are famous for making elderflower cordial using boiled water, caster sugar, citric acid and lemon juice.

Images by Kurt Stüber 1, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons and Willow, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

3. Elder trees are thin and short and tend to produce multiple stems from the based. If an elder tree is given space and light it'll grow into a tree otherwise it will grow into a large shrub.

Elderflower by N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons and An elder tree by Broad Street by Patrick Roper, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

4. Older elder trees have furrows and many ridges and look rough with it's greyish-brown bark.

Photo by David J. Stang, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

5. The elder tree.

Elder tree and sheep by Patrick Roper, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons