Sambucus canadensis

Chinaberry resembles common elderberry, Sambucus canadensis L., a spreading crowned shrub with once pinnately compound leaves, margins finely serrate, and green to dark-purple berries in flat-topped clusters. Elderberry is very attractive to wildlife – bees, birds and butterflies.

Landscape Alternatives

These native plants are suitable substitutes for chinaberry in the landscape.

Devils Walkingstick (Aralia spinosa) is a small native tree or large shrub with leggy multiple trunks and coarse branches armed with scattered prickles. The leaves are bipinnately compound, large (3-4 feet long), and color well in the fall. In midsummer, it produces large globular panicles of small white flowers which later become purplish-black berries on reddish stems. Attractive to bees, birds, and butterflies.

Common Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) is a large, multi-stemmed shrub with pinnately compound leaves. Small, white, fragrant flowers are grouped into a large, flat-topped, showy cluster in June. Edible purplish-black berries follow. Attractive to bees, birds, and butterflies.