Sambucus caerulea

Sambucus caerulea, Blue Elderberry is native from Alberta to Mexico. It is very similar to Sambucus mexicana but needs more water and better soil. It might be more desirable in a watered back yard as it will handle water better.

Blue Elderberry has slightly larger berries but I think that is because of the extra water. This species is happiest at moist cool spots. I've only seen good looking ones of this at 8000' or so. There is a mangy looking one at 3000' in Tehachapi barely growing in a seasonal creek down out of the wind. This species looks the similar at our site. Sambucus mexicana on the other hand grows in areas of little or no snow (or like our area that snow melts off after a day or two).

The botanists list these as the same species, as sub-species of each, they have 3 spellings of caerula(cerulea,coerulea), caerula as glauca, mexicana as coerulea var. arizonica, mexicana as velutina. One key has caerulea as having leaflets of 5-9, and mexicana 3-5 leaflets. Another key says they both have 5-9 leaflets. The best way to tell if you have one or the other is that Sambucus caerulea grows from 4000' up to 10000' and Sambucus mexicana 4500' down. That's not exact but close.

Sambucus caerlea makes a good cobbler or jelly. The birds love the berries raw but some of us folks can't handle them unless they're cooked.