The Round of the Year: Elder and Rosehip Through the Seasons

There is a calendar you read in the shrub rather than on the page. While the usual calendar divides the year into four seasons, Central Europe’s phenological calendar recognizes ten: early spring, first spring, full spring, early summer, high summer, late summer, early autumn, full autumn, late autumn and winter. [2]Each of these seasons begins not by a date but by an observed developmental phase of an indicator plant, and in Austria such records date back to 1851.[1]

The remarkable thing for this house: of all plants, it is the black elder, Sambucus nigra, that serves twice over as the indicator plant in this calendar. The onset of its flowering marks early summer, the onset of its fruit ripening marks early autumn. [2][1]With that, the separation of the plant's parts is already written into the calendar itself: the flower opens early summer, the berry opens early autumn, and between the two lies the whole of high summer.

This page follows the elder and the dog rose through the year and shows what each stage tells us, what we can gather and what we can keep. It is the hub of the season. It points to the individual spokes, to the elderflowers, to the rosehip, to the heirlooms of the house, without retelling their stories here.

In spring, elder and dog rose still do little that is visible. The elder is among the early budding woody plants, its pinnate leaves showing themselves early in the year. The dog rose begins its flowering only toward the end of spring, in May. [3]For both shrubs, this is a season of preparation, with harvest still to come. What counts in spring is the budding itself, the promise.

The human custom of these weeks lies elsewhere. Across Central and Eastern Europe, the gathering of young wild herbs after winter is a practice still alive today. A field study from Bulgaria documents, across ninety four households, sixty five edible wild plants from twenty two families, of which about half are gathered for their young leaves or the whole young herb, for boiled and braised dishes and as fillings for dough dishes. [4]That is the documented shape of the year's first green, one more Central European habit, not a nostalgic commonplace. The recipes explain which plants to use, in what quantities and how to prepare them.

Then, toward the end of May, the flat, cream white flower umbels of the elder open, and in the natural calendar early summer begins. [6]In Austria it is put plainly: one watches closely for the flowering of the black elder, for in the natural calendar this traditionally rings in early summer. [5]Field observations from the Central European region confirm the window: green flower buds in early May, full bloom toward the end of May. [7]The flower is here the early summer part, not the berry; it is gathered now, and like all raw elder material it is heated before it is eaten.[8]

The loveliest calendar customs gather around this flowering. In Polish folk custom the elderflowers were gathered at one quite particular moment, namely on the eve of Saint John's Day, the 23rd of June, which is why the plant was called swietojanny bez, Saint John's elder. The flowers picked at this time were kept in the house and used through the year, and it was held unwise to pick elderflowers after Saint John's Day. [9]This is a Polish custom, not an Austrian one, and the healing beliefs of the time belong to the account of that custom, not to evidence of an effect.

That the elderflower was read as a calendar sign is also attested beyond the German speaking lands. On Gotland in the Baltic, the black elder was a calendar sign: the ethnologist Nils Lithberg recorded that, when the elder was in flower, people held the fish around the island to be at their best, which held true from the end of July into August. [10]A Swedish example of how the human calendar was coupled to the phenology of the elder.

Careful writing means making the distinction clear here. A medicinal monograph of the European Medicines Agency exists for Sambucus nigra L., flos, that is the elderflower; the berry has no monograph of the same standing. [11]We mention this to keep the plant parts distinct: flowers and berries are different parts. We draw no conclusion about their effects from this distinction.

What was flower in early summer becomes fruit in high summer. After pollination by insects, each single flower develops into a small berry, green at first, which later turns purple black and ripens from late summer into autumn. [6][6]The fruit set of the elder begins in July. [12]The shrub now carries both within itself one after the other: the memory of the flower that is past, and the promise of the berry that is to come. Both stay separate, in time as in use.

With the onset of fruit ripening in the black elder, early autumn begins, and it shares this onset with the cornelian cherry, the Dirndl, whose fruits ripen at the same time. [2][1]The purple black berry reaches its full ripeness in early September. [12][7]In Austria the ripening elder is held to be the indicator plant with which the phenological early autumn begins. [13]Now is the time of the berry, and it is a different time from that of the flower.

This rule, that the berry should be cooked, is a practical point for early autumn, with a documented source: the stated reasoning about the cyanogenic glycosides and their reduction by heat comes from the assessment report of the European Medicines Agency on Sambucus nigra L., fructus. [14]More on the berry, its ripeness and its processing can be found in the elderberry entry of the encyclopedia. Here it stays with the season and its one rule of craft.

Only now does the rose step into the year with its part. The dog rose, Rosa canina, flowered in early summer; its fruit, however, the rosehip, in Austria the Hetscherl, ripens only around October, well after both elder parts, glossy red and smooth. [3][15]With that the plant year orders itself clearly: first the elderflower in early summer, then the elderberry in early autumn, and last, in full autumn, the rosehip. Three parts, three seasons.

The rosehip carries a long thread of tradition of its own. As the story goes, its name traces back to the belief that the root of the plant helped against the bite of a rabid dog, hence dog rose; and rosehips were already being eaten around 2000 before Christ. [16]The rosehip is traditionally gathered after the first autumn frost, which by custom makes it sweeter and more flavorful. [17]That is a custom of taste, a question of texture and good flavor, not a claim of nutritional value or of effect.

The elder closes its year in color. Its pinnate leaves turn red in autumn before they fall, and the shrub becomes dormant. [6]The rosehip, by contrast, stays. The characteristic fruits of the dog rose, called rosehips or Hetscherln, often remain on the shrub through winter. [15]So the rose carries the thread of the year over the winter, while the elder is already asleep.

And there is a custom that binds together the two poles of the year, midsummer and the middle of winter, and which is recorded, of all places, in Styria. In Styria, for the Bertha night on the 6th of January, one stepped into a circle of protection, standing at its center with elderberries that had been gathered on Saint John's night. [18]The source links midsummer with winter here. Gathering berries on Saint John’s night does not, however, fit black elder’s late-summer ripening. We therefore read the passage as recorded folk belief, not as a reliable harvest calendar or a protective effect.

So the circle closes. The rhythms of plants and people meet: the elderflower opens early summer, the elderberry opens early autumn, the rosehip fills full autumn, and over the winter the red fruit stays on the shrub, until the flowers open again the following May. Three parts, three times, one year.

From the seasonal cycle, continue to the elderberry harvest.