Sambucus mexicana

Blue elderberry, Blue Elderberry

Family: Viburnaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Blue elderberry is a California native shrub found in the Central California Floristic Province, Great Basin, and Desert Mountains in streambanks and open forest places at elevations to 3,000 meters. Flowering from March to September, this plant produces creamy white flowers in broad, flat-topped clusters up to 33 centimeters wide. Growing as a substantial shrub 2 to 8 meters tall and equally wide, it develops with multiple spreading branches. Its compound leaves have 3 to 9 elliptic to ovate leaflets 3 to 20 centimeters long, with asymmetric bases and acute tips. The fruit develops as a distinctive dark blue-black berry densely covered in white waxy coating, giving it a bluish appearance.

Habitat: Common. Streambanks, open places in forest

Bloom period: Mar-Sep

Elevation: < 3000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, GB, DMtns

California counties: Los Angeles, Butte, Kern, San Diego, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Inyo, Orange, Mono, Santa Barbara, Tulare, Calaveras, Alameda, Amador, Del Norte, Glenn, Lassen, Merced, Napa, San Joaquin, Sutter, Tehama, Colusa, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Humboldt, Lake, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Modoc, San Benito, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma, Trinity, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tuolumne, Yolo, Sacramento, Alpine, Solano, Kings, Yuba, Stanislaus

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.