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RE: Elder Flowers - How To Identify Wild Elderberry Shrubs - with tips on harvesting and storing their flowers
Beautiful info! I especially appreciate the part about the timing of the flower collection...even though I can't bring myself to harvest the flowers because I don't want to sacrifice any berries, haha! Maybe worth mentioning that the leaves are serrated and to watch out for some slightly similar plants like Dogwood and Hercules Club?
There are so many flowers on most of the Elderberry bushes -- I hope you can at least have a cup of tea, lol. I did say that the leaflets have jagged edges. It's always interesting to hear what people think another plant looks like and could get confused with. Dogwoods don't have compound leaves, so there's no leaflets - and they don't have a soft pith in the center of their branches. And Hercules Club has so many thorns! I could see someone getting Elderberry bushes confused with Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra), but only if there weren't any flowers or berries -- the important parts, lol! Anyway, I hope you can spare a few Elder berries, so you can enjoy their flowers! :D