Also known as scarlet elder, red elderberry has an 8 to 10-foot, vase-shaped form that creates an umbrella-like canopy over smaller woodland shrubs. It's adaptive to a wide range of well-drained soils, tolerates occasional flooding, and grows in sunny or partly shady areas. The creamy-white flowers, which bloom earlier than those of many woodland shrubs, teem with insects in late spring and are followed by bright red berries that are mobbed by birds in late summer – all this activity is set against a background of downy, green leaves. One way to identify this species is by the unpleasant odor of crushed foliage, branches, and flowers; however, the flowers' strong scent, nectar, and highly nutritious pollen attract many ants, bees, wasps, and flies. At least 50 species of birds, including hummingbirds, as well as squirrels, mice, and raccoons, eat the berries and disperse the seeds. According to Susanna Shurmack, author of Everything Elderberry, red elderberries have more toxic compounds and less palatability than black elderberries and are not commonly eaten by humans. Native Americans were careful to remove the seeds and cook the berries before using them as medicine or food. 
 
Red elderberry is often used for revegetation, erosion control, and wildlife plantings. Its tolerance of heavy metals helps it thrive where other plants do not, making it valuable for rehabilitating disturbed areas where erosion can release metals into streams. Due to its colonizing habit, it's used as a windbreak on roadways. Streamside plantings are important to some native fish species because of the shade the shrubs provide. In domestic landscapes, it may be planted along ponds and streams as a specimen, in groupings, or mixed with native witch hazel, buttonbush, and winterberry for a hedgerow certain to attract wildlife throughout the seasons. The shrub withstands severe pruning.
 
Native habitats include swamps, thickets, roadside ditches, woodland borders, and stream banks.
 
Plant Characteristics:
Most commonly grows 8-10’ tall and wide.
 
Grows in full to part sun.
 
Prefers moist, rich, neutral-to-slightly acidic, well-drained soils.  Tolerates seasonal flooding. 
 
Tiny white flowers appear in pyramidal clusters in May and June.  Berries are usually bright red or sometimes purplish-black.  
 
Compound leaves have 5-7 green, lance-shaped leaflets with serrated edges and hairy undersides. 
 
Trunk is multi-stemmed and covered with rough, brownish-gray bark.  Stems are soft and pithy. 
 
Wildlife Value:
Host plant for 33 species of Lepidoptera, including the specialists orange-headed epicallima and elder shoot border moths pictured here.  Native bees use plant parts for nesting material, and the hollow stems provide over-wintering sites. Porcupines, mice, and rabbits eat the buds and bark in winter. Deer will eat the foliage, bark and buds, but red elderberry is not a preferred browse.  
 
Medicinal, Edible, and Other Uses:  
Native Americans cooked the berries and stored them underground or in water to eat later in winter. They mixed them with black huckleberries in berry cakes for feasts.
 
The highly nutritious, cooked berries are commonly used medicinally for sinus infections, viral infections, high blood pressure, and to inhibit the growth of certain forms of cancer.
 
The hollow stems were used for whistles, pipes, and toy blowguns.  
 
Caution: Raw berries, which contain poisonoug seeds and may cause nausea, should be cooked before eaten.