The Forestry Forum

General Forestry => Tree, Plant and Wood I.D. => Topic started by: Jeff on May 14, 2025, 09:15:02 AM

Title: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Jeff on May 14, 2025, 09:15:02 AM
I noted a shrub (tree?) I a brush line I'd been lopping off to see from a deer blind this morning and I do not know what it is.  Any idears? It's leafing out before almost everything else.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/1000043812.jpg) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=359298)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/1000043813.jpg) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=359298)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/1000043814.jpg) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=359298)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/1000043816.jpg) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=359298)


Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: rusticretreater on May 14, 2025, 10:07:15 AM
Red Elderberry

website: identify.plantnet.org (https://forestryforum.com/board/identify.plantnet.org)

You can click and drag an image onto the web page or upload and it will identify it for you
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Jeff on May 14, 2025, 10:32:51 AM
Thats what I come up with using google lense here, but I didnt think the leaves were right, and the flowers should be white. Maybe they will turn white.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: thecfarm on May 14, 2025, 05:37:41 PM
I've been driving around all day and I have not seen any elder berry bushes that look like that?
I just came home to get the dog and saw the post quick and I thought elder berry too.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Otis1 on May 14, 2025, 09:16:43 PM
It's an elderberry, but what kind I'm not sure.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: customsawyer on May 15, 2025, 05:23:34 AM
I would say it's an old one. Hence the name "Elder". ffcheesy
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Jeff on May 15, 2025, 05:27:00 AM
Bahaha! Bahaha!  Good one Dad.   ffsmiley ffcheesy

Got a deal for ya. You know ya want too..  Mr. Truck for that Ranger, and Ill seal the deal with a walleye dinner.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: customsawyer on May 15, 2025, 05:49:06 AM
I was thinking of the way Tom, DanG, and Bro Nobel used to go back and forth with their wit like that.
The trouble with the truck deal, is I would then have to build something to store it in.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: NewYankeeSawmill on May 15, 2025, 05:57:39 AM
Looks a little like Beauty berry?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callicarpa_americana
https://shop.arborday.org/beautyberry

Though the wikifolks seem to think it doesn't get that far north?
The way the berries clump up like that is unusual.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Jeff on May 15, 2025, 05:58:31 AM
It has 1940s steel he's a tough son of a truck. Put him in sales room.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Jeff on May 15, 2025, 06:12:18 AM
Yea, no, I don't think it could survive here. We get some tough winters, and this is pretty much the edge of wilderness, so you would think it would be native. I'll go back out today and check the advancement. If it is elderberry,  it should become obvious.  Where you at @SwampDonkey !
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: thecfarm on May 15, 2025, 06:17:26 AM
Those purple blossoms I have not seen.
But the leaves and stems look like elderberry to me.
As I said, I have not seen elderberry in bloom around here.
One year there was a lot on each side of the brook.
Then the next year there was hardly any.
Must be a little wet in that area?
That's what they like around here.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Jeff on May 15, 2025, 04:32:48 PM
Looking more like an elderberry I'd say

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/1000043866.jpg) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=359313)
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: SwampDonkey on May 15, 2025, 04:35:09 PM
I'm right here, after a day of swinging a clearing saw and being chewed up by black flies. They got me on the neck like little vampires. ffcheesy ffcheesy  

Some of the guys mentioned elderberries already. ffsmiley  That is red berried elder, sambucus racemosa. It isn't edible to humans, but deer and grouse eat them red berries. They are quite pungent, and a broke off stick even smells like nothing you want in a pie. ffcheesy  It is about the toughest shrub there is as far as cold. They will break bud here before the snow is gone. The purplish beginnings will later become white. The ID books don't do it justice at the early stages of flowering when it's still purplish. And like the black elder you can start new ones from cuttings stuck in mud, but with some buds down in the dirt, some above the dirt. The new roots come out of the buried buds. That is a common plant up here along forest roads build in maple forest. It will grow on the berms and ditch lines if trees don't get a hold first. There is an abandoned Christmas tree farm up the road, the frontage is taken over with red berried elder. Some folks call it red elderberry. Same.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: SwampDonkey on May 15, 2025, 04:38:52 PM
Black elders don't flower until mid summer around here. So Ray's elders are probably the black 'eating' kind and not flowering yet.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: thecfarm on May 15, 2025, 05:28:55 PM
Sawmpdonkey, I betcha you are right.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Jeff on May 15, 2025, 05:47:14 PM
I may need to go out and do some propagation eh?
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Resonator on May 15, 2025, 06:29:33 PM
I was gonna say elderberries also, but its the wrong time of year for them to be ripe in color.
Genuine elderberries can be made into jelly or wine.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: SwampDonkey on May 15, 2025, 07:08:40 PM
Quote from: Resonator on May 15, 2025, 06:29:33 PMI was gonna say elderberries also, but its the wrong time of year for them to be ripe in color.
Genuine elderberries can be made into jelly or wine.
This is the plant opening up it's flowers. No berries yet. That opens up into an umbel and becomes white, gets pollinated and produces fruit.
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: SwampDonkey on May 15, 2025, 07:27:59 PM
Quote from: Jeff on May 15, 2025, 05:47:14 PMI may need to go out and do some propagation eh?
You can, but if you want some to eat, find the black kind and propagate those.  ffcheesy Even if you buy one plant at a nursery, you can grow endless plants off it. It's very easy. 

Here's a black one propogated in the grow tent.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/elder-rooted2.JPG) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=359315)

Here is red berried elder just flushing out.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_red-berries-elder-003.jpg) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=83560)



Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: SwampDonkey on May 15, 2025, 07:32:09 PM
I pick the black ones here to make syrup, they do not ripen all the same time, even on the umbel. I cut the ripened umbels and drop them in a pan and go to a chair and remove the berries. It's a lot of work and them things are tiny. I remove the pits in a food mill before cooking. Did I say it's a lot of work?  ffcheesy ffcool
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: thecfarm on May 15, 2025, 09:11:03 PM
My wife does the chair thing.  ffsmiley
She is not too stable on her feet, So I cut them like you do and put them in bags for her to pick the berries off. 
I got the easy job.   :wink_2:
Title: Re: Never noticed this before. What is it?
Post by: Machinebuilder on May 16, 2025, 08:08:31 AM
When I was a young boy we had a black elder berry.

we used to cut the bunched and then rub them across a coarse screen to get the berry's off.