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Elderberry

Elderberry is the common name for about 20 species of trees, shrubs or herbaceous plants in the family Honeysuckle. Most of these species grow naturally in the temperate climate zones of both hemispheres, including the forests in Turkey, and are grown as ornamental plants in many places. There are two species of elderberry that are of interest to our subject and have very similar medicinal effects.

Black elderberry or also known as the poplar tree (S. nigra) is a tree that can grow up to 4-10 m tall, especially in Western and Northern Anatolia. Its trunk is covered with a gray colored and long cracked bark. Its compound leaves, usually consisting of 5 leaflets, are arranged opposite each other. These leaves smell bad when rubbed with the hand.

It opens in a spreading umbrella or cluster shape with small flowers that are white, yellowish or sometimes pale pink and have a strong scent. When the flowers mature, they turn into round and shiny black fruits with a diameter of 6-10 mm. The fruits contain a blood-red pulp and 3-4 long oval seeds. Black elderberry, which loves the heather soil of forest areas, reproduces with the seeds it sheds.

The flowers of the black elderberry contain volatile and fixed oil, sticky plant fluid, resin, tannins and sugars, as well as alkaloids called samburgin and rutin. The fruit of the plant contains natural sugars, fruit acids, tannins, vitamins C and P, dye pigments and trace amounts of volatile oil. The bark of the elderberry also contains tannins, resins, alkaloids and valerian acid. Ripe elderberries are edible. The pulp of the fruit is used in some places to color wine, and the stem and branches of the plant are used to make spools of thread.”