With showy flowers and nutritious fruit, this favorite of pollinators and animals can be an upright, 6–26 feet tall (2–8 m) multi-branched shrub or a small tree. Note the pinnate leaves with toothed leaflets, flat-topped clusters of small, white flowers, and small blue berries. The berries are considered edible when cooked. Numerous cultivars are used in landscaping.

FLOWERS: June–September. Flat-topped clusters 2–12 inches wide (5–30 cm); flowers creamy white; fruit round, fleshy, 1/4 inch wide, (6 mm), dark-blue with a powdery, white coating.

LEAVES: Opposite; blades 5–7 inches long (13–18 cm), pinnate with 5–9 leaflets, each lance-shaped to elliptic, 1–5 inches long (3–13 cm) by 3/8–2 3/8 inches wide (1–6 cm); edges serrated; top surface smooth; bottom pale, smooth to sparsely hairy; tips pointed.

HABITAT: Stream sides, moist woods, slopes, drainages, disturbed areas; pinyon-juniper foothills, ponderosa-Douglas fir, spruce-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 3,700–11,400 feet (1128–3475 m).

RANGE: Widespread in every state and Canada.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The scientific nomenclature used here follows the most up to date classification used in Flora Neomexicana III (Allred, 2020). Various sources have placed Blue Elderberry in 3 different families and given it 6 different species names with various subspecies and variety divisions.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in foothills and mountains in NM in mid-to high-elevation, moist habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, Mora, Otero, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Valencia.