ELDER (Ang.-Sax. ellam ; Ger. Holunder ; Fr. sureau), the popular designation of the deciduous shrubs and trees constituting the genus Sambucus of the natural order Caprifoliaceoe. The Black-berried or Common Elder, S. nigra, the bourtree of Scotland, is found in Europe, the north of Africa, Western Asia, the Caucasus, and Southern Siberia; in sheltered spots it attains a height of over 20 feet. The bark is smooth; the shoots are stout and angular, and the leaves glabrous, pinnate, and generally oval or elliptical. The flowers, which form corymbose cyme3, with five main branches, have a cream-coloured, gamopetalous, five-lobed corolla, five stamens, and three sessile stigmas; the berries are purplish-black, globular, and threeor four-seeded, and ripen about September. The elder thrives best in moist, well-drained situations, but can be grown in a great diversity of soils. It is propagated by young shoots, which after a year are fit for transplantation. It is found useful for making screen-fences in bleak, exposed situations, and also as a shelter for other shrubs in the outskirts of plantations. By clipping two or three times a year, it may be made close and compact in growth. The young trees furnish a brittle wood, containing much pith; the wood of old trees is white, hard, and close-grained, and polishes well, and is employed for shoemakers’ pegs, combs, skewers, mathematical instruments, and turned articles. Young elder twigs deprived of pith have from very early time3 been in request for making whistles, popguns, and other toys.

The elder was known to the ancients for its medicinal properties, and in England the inner bark was formerly administered as a cathartic. The flowers {sαmbuci flores) contain a volatile oil, and are reputed to be diaphoretic in properties; they serve for the preparation of an ointment {unguentum sambuci), and for the distillation of elder-flower water {αguα sambuci), used in confectionery, perfumes, and lotions. The leaves of the elder are employed to impart a green colour to fat and oil {unguentum sambuci foliorum and oleum viride), and the berries for miking wine, a common adulterant of port. The leaves and bark emit a sickly odour, believed to be repugnant to insects. Christopher Gullet {Phil. Trans., 1772, lxii. p. 348) recommends that cabbages, turnips, wheat, and fruit trees, to preserve them from caterpillars, flies, and blight, should be whipped with twigs of young elder. According to German folk-lore, the hat must be doffed in the presence of the elder-tree; and in certain of the English midland counties a belief was once prevalent that the cross of Christ was made from its wood, which should therefore never be used as fuel, or treated with disrespect (see Quart. Rev., cxiv. 233). It was, however, a common mediaeval tradition, alluded to by Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, and other writers, that the elder was the tree on which Judas hanged himself; and on this account, probably, to be crowned with elder was in olden times accounted a disgrace. In Cymbeline (act iv. s. 2) “the stinking elder” is mentioned as a symbol of grief. In Denmark the tree is supposed by the superstitious to be under the protection of the “Elder-mother its flowers may not be gathered without her leave; its wood must not be employed for any household furniture; and a child sleeping in an elder-wood cradle would certainly be strangled by the Elder-mother.

S. nigra virescens is a variety of S. nigra having white bark and green-coloured berries; some ornamental varieties have blotched leaves. The Scarlet-berried Elder, »S', racemosa, is the handsomest species of its genus. It is a native of various parts of Europe, growing in Britain to a height of over 15 feet, but often producing no fruit. The Dwarf Elder or Danewort, S. Ebulus, a common European species, reaches a height of about 6 feet. Its cyme is hairy, has three principal branches, and is smaller than that of »S'. nigra; the flowers are of a dull purplish hue. All parts of the plant are cathartic and emetic.

OF ISRAEL. By this name we understand the heads of tribes, or rather of the great families in Israel, who, before the settlement of the Hebrew commonwealth, had a government and authority over their own families, and the people. When Moses was sent into Egypt to deliver Israel, he assembled the elders of Israel, and told them that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had appeared to him, Exod. iii, 15; iv, 29, &c. Moses and Aaron treat the elders of Israel as the representatives of the nation. When God gave the law to Moses, he said, “Take Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, his sons, and the seventy elders of Israel, and worship ye afar off,” Exod. xxiv, 1, 9, 10. They advanced only to the foot of the mountain. On all occasions afterward, we find this number of seventy elders. But it is credible, that as there were twelve tribes, there were seventy-two elders, six from each tribe, and that seventy is set down, instead of seventy-two; or rather, that Moses and Aaron should be added to the number seventy, and that, exclusive of them, there were but four elders from the tribe of Levi. After Jethro’s arrival in the camp of Israel, Moses made a considerable change in the governors of the people. He established over Israel heads of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, that justice might be readily administered to applicants; only difficult cases were referred to himself, Exod. xviii, 24, 25, &c. But this constitution did not continue long; for on the murmuring of the people at the encampment called the Graves of Lust, Num. xi, 24–35, Moses appointed seventy elders of Israel, to whom God communicated part of that legislator’s spirit; they began to prophesy, and ceased not afterward. This, according to the generality of interpreters, was the beginning of the sanhedrim; but, to support this opinion, many things must be supposed, whereby to infer, that this court of justice was constantly in being during the Scripture history. It seems that the establishment of the seventy elders by Moses continued, not only during his life, but under Joshua likewise, and under the judges. The elders of the people and Joshua swore to the treaty with the Gibeonites, Josh, ix, 15. A little before his death, Joshua renewed the covenant with the Lord, in company with the elders, the princes, the heads, and officers of Israel, Joshua xxiii; xxiv, 1, 28. After the death of Joshua, and the elders who survived him, the people were several times brought into bondage, and were delivered by their judges. We do not see distinctly what authority the elders had during this time, and still less under the kings who succeeded the judges.