Elder is such a beautiful plant and so versatile as medicine. Sambucus nigra, is a large shrub that grows to between 5-10 feet and in the spring has lovely white flowers that grow in clusters at the end of branches. Each of these flowers turns into a little berry which can be used as medicine as well. When wildcrafting, birds usually get to the berries before us so if you want to get the berries tie a little cheese cloth around the flower clusters before they go to fruit to try to keep out some birds.

*Elder branches have been used to make Pan-pipes and other simple flutes*

Flowers are much easier to collect than the berries because we like the flowers, and so do the bees, but other animals do not. You want to collect the flowers when about 70% of the flowers are open in a cluster…