Sambucus cerulea Raf.

Bereifter Holunder (DE), Blue elderberry (EN), Mexican elder, blue elder

Climate known 75 photographs

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Sambucus cerulea or Sambucus nigra subsp. cerulea, with the common names blue elderberry and blue elder, is a coarse textured shrub species of elder in the family Viburnaceae.

Text from Wikipedia, “Sambucus cerulea”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Sambucus

Sambucus is a genus of between 20 and 30 species of flowering plants in the family Viburnaceae. The various species are commonly referred to as elder, with the flowers as elderflower, and the fruit as elderberry. The genus is represented by species native to most parts of the world, including Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa and Australia, and has been distributed to other temperate and subtropical climates.

Text from Wikipedia, “Sambucus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Viburnaceae

Described by

Raf.

Native to

British Columbia, Colorado, Idaho +12

Wild records

1893 in range· 401 open

At a glance

Warmest month

28°C

Jul, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

509mm/yr

7 wet months · peak Feb 98 mm (CHELSA)

Light

15–52DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Rain rule: a winter growing season, November to March in the northern hemisphere (November to March at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 509 mm a year, wettest February at 98 mm, driest July at 2 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -1.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Sambucus caerulea var. velutina (Durand & Hilg.) Schwer.; Sambucus californica K.Koch; Sambucus cerulea f. fimbriata Schwer.; Sambucus cerulea f. glauca (Nutt.) Schwer.; Sambucus cerulea f. semperflorens Schwer. and 27 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, November to March in the northern hemisphere (November to March at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (406 mm of 509 mm) falls in November to March, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 9.9 °C against a yearly mean of 14.4 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: May to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 509 mm a year, wettest February at 98 mm, driest July at 2 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

509 mm a year at the habitat, 406 mm of it November to March. Wettest month February at 98 mm, driest July at 2 mm; 2 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 322 mm to 1275 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 52 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 8, the highest 90th-percentile month 54).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -1.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -1.0 °C, the absolute minimum -4.8 °C, about 9 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 40.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 3.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells -8.0 °C to 7.9 °C), warmest day 27.9 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -1.0 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 51 to 58% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1113 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale

Figures by month

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	14 / 1–18	15 / 2–18	16 / 6–20	19 / 10–23	21 / 15–26	25 / 20–30	28 / 23–33	28 / 23–33	26 / 20–31	22 / 13–26	17 / 5–21	13 / -0–18
Night °C	4 / -8–8	5 / -7–9	6 / -5–10	7 / -2–11	10 / 3–13	12 / 7–15	15 / 11–18	15 / 11–19	14 / 7–18	11 / 2–15	7 / -4–11	4 / -9–8
Rain mm	97 / 45–212	98 / 41–182	75 / 42–154	37 / 22–93	17 / 6–74	5 / 2–54	2 / 0–34	3 / 1–36	9 / 5–48	30 / 16–92	54 / 30–176	82 / 42–222
DLI	17 / 9–22	23 / 16–27	33 / 24–37	42 / 34–46	48 / 40–51	52 / 43–54	51 / 46–53	47 / 40–48	39 / 31–41	29 / 19–32	20 / 10–24	15 / 8–20
RH %	58 / 50–65	58 / 52–63	58 / 52–63	56 / 49–61	55 / 46–62	53 / 43–62	51 / 42–62	51 / 43–62	52 / 44–62	53 / 47–61	56 / 48–65	57 / 49–65

Each figure is the median across the 1113 grid cells holding the 1846 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1112:1230 (34.375, -118.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -4.8 °C, 1st-percentile night -1.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 40.9 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1113 distinct grid cells holding the 1846 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1112:1230 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 34.50_-118.750, lapse-corrected -174 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 597 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.

Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

NativeBritish Columbia, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico Northwest· introduced: Germany

Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker33.915, -117.838 · in the densest population, 1101 records (58% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1893 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 401 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1 km away. 6 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 47 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 1893 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Gavin Slater, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); no rights reserved · CC0 (5).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Sambucus cerulea, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Antioxidant capacities of ten edible North American plants

Ulyana Muñoz Acuña, Daniel Atha, Jun Ma, Michael Nee (2002) · Phytotherapy Research

Regulation of Inflammatory Gene Expression in PBMCs by Immunostimulatory Botanicals

Karen L. Denzler, Robert F. Waters, Bertram L. Jacobs, Yvan Rochon (2010) · PLoS ONE

EVALUATION OF METHODS TO DETERMINE USE OF BROWSE BY CALIFORNIA MOUNTAIN SHEEP

Brian M. Wikeem, M. D. Pitt (1987)

Propagation techniques forSambucus cerulea(blue elderberry)

Tiffany Maughan, Brent Black, Larry Rupp, Matt Yost (2018) · Native Plants Journal

Occurrence Download