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“Abnormal” leaves are common in black elderberry, a species with very pronounced genetic instability.
The leaves have almost reached their final size and are at the peak of their metabolic activity, the highest among European shrubs. Now is the time to harvest them for their medicinal properties.
While the trees and bushes are still bare, the young leaves grow at high speed to reach full development a month later.
The shrub has its branches raised at the ends of straight, sparsely hairy stems.
With its very dense foliage, this young elder leaves little chance for its competitors to settle under its branches and can grow quickly, but is therefore very sensitive to drought, heat waves and storms.
The Elder Fairy seen by Yé Thibout during a training course led by the author of L’amisureau in May 2024.
On the same bush there are flowering umbels and others whose fruit set has already completed. Fruit set is the stage of transformation of the ovary of the fertilized flower into a fruit.
This is how the scene is depicted in a 14th century fresco in the Notre-Dame-des-Fontaines chapel (La Brigue, Alpes-Maritimes). The bush can be recognized by its foliage and the color of the cherry-sized berries, which would have become sour and small after this catastrophic event.
The scene is carved on the portal of the Strasbourg Cathedral (13th century). A goat pushes Judas into the pit of hell. Shortly thereafter, the elderberry takes the form of a smelly and twisted bush chosen by the traitor.
The flower brings the elderberries out of their anonymity. This is the time to identify and note their location to find them when they bear fruit or to take young stems for DIY purposes.
It was thought to have died due to a summer drought, and now it has come back to life! Wouldn't it be a bit witchy?