ELDER (0. Eng. ellarn; Ger. Holunder; Fr. sureau)  , the popular designation of the deciduous shrubs and trees constituting the genus Sambuczis of the natural order Caprifoliaceae . The Common Elder, . S. nigra, the bourtree of Scotland, is found in Europe, the north of Africa, Western Asia, the Caucasus, and Southern Siberia; in sheltered spots it attains a height of over 20 ft . The bark is smooth; the shoots are stout and angular, and the leaves glabrous, pinnate, with oval or elliptical leaflets . The flowers, which form dense flat-topped clusters (corymbose cymes), with five main branches, have a cream-coloured, gamopetalous, five-lobed corolla, five stamens, and three sessile stigmas; the berries are purplish-black, globular and three- or four-seeded, and ripen about September . The elder thrives best in moist, well-drained situations, but can be grown in a great diversity of soils . It grows readily from young shoots, which after a year are fit for transplantation . It is found useful for making screen-fences in bleak, exposed situations, and also as a shelter for other shrubs in the outskirts of plantations . By clipping two or three times a year, it may be made close and compact in growth . The young trees furnish a brittle wood, containing much pith; the wood of old trees is white, hard and close-grained, polishes well, and is employed for shoemakers' pegs, combs, skewers, mathematical instruments and turned articles . Young elder twigs deprived of pith have from very early times been in request for making whistles, popguns and other toys . The elder was known to the ancients for its medicinal properties, and in England the inner bark was formerly administered as a cathartic .

The flowers (sambuci ftores) contain a volatile oil, and serve for the

distillation of elder-flower water (aqua sambuci), used in confectionery, perfumes and lotions . The leaves of the elder are employed to impart a green colour to fat and oil (unguentum sambuci foliorum and oleum viride), and the berries for making wine, a common adulterant of port . The leaves and bark emit a sickly odour, believed to be repugnant to insects . Christopher Gullet (Phil . Trans., 1772, lxii. p . 348) recommends that cabbages, turnips, wheat and fruit trees, to preserve them from caterpillars, flies and blight, should be whipped with twigs of young elder . According to German folklore, the hat must be doffed in the presence of the elder-tree; and in certain of the English midland counties a belief was once prevalent that the cross of Christ was made from its wood, which should therefore never be used as fuel, or treated with disrespect (see Quart . Rev. cxiv . 233) . It was, however, a common medieval tradition, alluded to by Ben Jonson, Shakespeare and other writers, that the elder was the tree on which Judas hanged himself; and on this account, probably, to be crowned with elder was in olden times accounted a disgrace . In Cymbeline (act iv. s . 2) " the stinking elder " is mentioned as a symbol of grief .

In

Denmark the tree is supposed by the superstitious to be under the protection of the " Elder-mother ": its flowers may not be gathered without her leave; its wood must not be employed for any household furniture; and a child sleeping in an elder-wood cradle would certainly be strangled by the Elder-mother . Several varieties are known in cultivation: aurea, golden elder, has golden-yellow leaves; laciniata, parsley-leaved elder, has the leaflets cut into fine segments; rotundifolia has rounded leaflets; forms also occur with variegated white and yellow leaves, and virescens is a variety having white bark and green-coloured berries . The scarlet-berried elder, S. racemosa, is the handsomest species of the genus . It is a native of various parts of Europe, growing in Britain to a height of over 15 ft., but often producing no fruit . The dwarf elder or Danewort (supposed to have been introduced into Britain by the Danes), S . Ebulus, a common European species, reaches a height of about 6 ft . Its cyme is hairy, has three principal branches, and is smaller than that of S. nigra; theflowers are white tipped with pink . All parts of the plant are cathartic and emetic .