Been seeing any of these beauties blooming along the creek beds and bar ditches while bombing down the highway or tooling along the back roads lately? I'm not talking about the smaller white ones that are only a couple of feet tall growing along the very sides of the roads (Queen Anne's Lace), but the larger bushier ones. If so, they are most likely going to be elderberry bushes. I've never really read it anywhere but it seems to me they are a plant that like to keep their feet wet. By that I mean that they really like growing along the edges of creeks and in swampier locations. They do grow in other places too but almost every creek crossing that has some sun exposure will have an elderberry bush growing on it somewhere. These are a very hardy shrub that can be mowed down year after year and keep coming back. They are also relatively easy to dig up and transplant and or start from a cutting. Beware that every part of the plant is toxic except for the flowers and berries when they are ripe. The berries will grow in clusters like grapes but only get to a size just smaller than a pea. A lot of people get the berries confused with Poke Salat (Poke Sallet, Poke Salad, whatever you want to call it) but the plants don't really look anything alike and the berries of Poke Weed are quite a bit larger, are way more organized in their cluster pattern, and will stain everything they touch! Elderberries (and the flowers) are very medicinal and got extremely popular during Covid for their immune boosting properties. CVS has a whole isle of Elder this and that products now. They also make a really good juice and even better, IMO, syrup. They are the only berry syrup that specifically mentioned in Texas cottage food laws because of the rise in 'snake oil salesmen' that promised miracle cures from their magic elixirs. I know of one personally that has been barred from two different local markets. Whether you use it for medicine or just like to eat a delicious free food, elderberries are good weed to know.
That's what's up in East Texas right now.
P.S. Depending on how much rain we get, sometimes those big white clusters of flowers will not make it to the berry stage. So, if your in it for the medicinal stuff, grab a few clusters of the flowers just in case but leave plenty of them to make berries if the weather allows.
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