Sambucus racemosa – Red Elderberry
You really need some elbow room to grow our native elderberries as they want to spread out to 20’ due to their rather weak wood. Red Elderberry fruits are not tasty raw but best cooked/boiled to use in jellies, pies, and the like. Some will add elderberry flowers to pancake batter. Better tasting is the blue elderberry (S. nigra subspecies cerulea) which is more common east of the Cascades. Many elderberry cultivars are available with different colored foliage and even laceleaf types.
