elder-blow

elder-blow (countable and uncountable, plural elder-blows)

1. (US) The edible flower clusters (umbels) of the elder tree (Sambucus nigra).
   • 1838, Lydia Maria Child, The American Frugal Housewife, New York: Samuel S. & William Wood, 22nd edition, enlarged, p. 27,

     A poultice of elder-blow tea and biscuit is good as a preventive to mortification.

   • 1845, Sylvester Judd, Margaret‎, Boston: Jordan and Wiley, Part 2, Chapter 5, p. 274:

     I wouldn’t tech it sooner a cow’d eat elder blows.

   • 1876, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Poetry and Imagination”, in Letters and Social Aims‎, Boston: James R. Osgood, page 33:

     What are his [the writer’s] garland and singing robes? What but a sensibility so keen that the scent of an elder-blow, or the timber-yard and corporation-works of a nest of pismires is event enough for him,—all emblems and personal appeals to him.

   • 1893, Louise Imogen Guiney, “Peter Rugg the Bostonian”, in A Roadside Harp,‎, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 2:

     […] the long highway broidered thick
     With elder-blow and rose;

   • 1918, Willa Cather, chapter 14, in My Antonia‎, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 265:

     […] the elder was all in bloom now; and Anna wanted to make elder-blow wine.

   • 1989, Cathy Johnson, The Nocturnal Naturalist: Exploring the Outdoors at Night‎, Chester, CT: Globe Pequot Press, page 42:

     Elderflowers glow like incandescent seafoam in the darkness. They, too, are good to eat. We make a fine tea of them to serve with elder blow fritters on the deck at night.

• elder bloom
• elder blossom
• elderflower