I am proud to announce that my son Edmund is a plant nerd! His wife jokes that hours
searching the net are for a special kind of pornography called Sambucus that is, elders.
Currently the three in his collection that interest me the most are all ornamental. In
'Monstrosa'; the flower heads look remarkably different. Every four florets are amalgamated into one perfectly regular starry floret - giving fewer larger florets in the head. four times more sexy. 'Norfolk Speckled'; was discovered by Charles Nelson and has remarkable white stems and midribs on the leaves.
Sambucus tigranii comes from Armenia and the best form has prolific clusters of vermilion berries in early summer preceded by creamy-yellow flowers in April. He’s crossed this with the golden cut-leaved elder (vermilion and gold might be stunning). Other people are also interested. One of his friends is currently brewing elderberry wine made from green-white fruit that has almost no tannins in it and he has provided some amazingly floriferous cultivars to growers who produce flowers for the elderflower cordial market. He’s discovered that a silvery sheen over the foliage of some cultivars enables the plants to cope with droughts better.
Sex is involved (and he does it with the bushes)! Anyone who passed his field in spring and summer will see the bushes adorned with little net bags with drawstrings - a special kind of condom (designed to keep pollinating insects off). His first objective is to produce an orange-leaved cultivar by crossing black-red cultivars with yellow-leaved cultivars but there are no limits to this sex and I have hopes for fastigiate, cut-leaved, orange-coloured, double-flowered grandchildren.
When asked, "Why Sambucus?" he has no answer - in the best nerd tradition.
