The tutor shares some observations about red elder trees.

Yesterday I spent out in the field, passing through some places I either rarely go or have never been. Especially in such context, a casual botanist looks for new plants or new features of familiar ones. I’m happy to say I made observations of both kinds, some of which need follow-up, but will make for exciting posts in coming weeks.

One of yesterday’s observations is the topic of today’s post: the red elder. In my post from August 13, 2015, I tell of a tree in the yard, suspecting it might be a blue elder. By that time, however, the bloom season had long passed. Red elder produces red berries, blue elder, blue ones.

Out on the field trip yesterday, I noticed red berries on an elder tree. A meaningful observation by itself, it spurred me, this morning, to check the elder in the yard: would it be fruiting as well? What colour would the fruits be, if so?

The elder tree in the yard is indeed fruiting: small red berries in clusters of 30 to 60. This tree, and the one I saw yesterday, both have the interesting feature that the berry clusters often develop above the limb.

The tree in the yard is a very young tree. Only its central “trunk” is brown, and berries have developed only on that limb. Green limbs growing off from the trunk have not fruited. Most of its leaves are in groups of seven, but it does have groups of nine as well.

Curiously, there is another elder next to the one with red berries. It hasn’t fruited yet; its leaves are mainly in groups of nine. Could it, in fact, be a blue elder?

This post will lead to yet another follow-up:)

Source:

Pojar, Jim and Andy MacKinnon. Plants of Coastal British Columbia. Vancouver:
  BC Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing, 1994.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.