Elderberry
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40 free Elderberry trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The elderberry is one of those plants that turns up everywhere once you start looking: in jam jars and cordial bottles, in old superstitions about witches and a guardian of the tree, and in a surprising number of films, novels and songs. The same shrub gives two harvests, creamy blossoms in early summer and dark fruit in autumn, and people have been finding uses for both for centuries. These fun facts about elderberry cover the plant itself and how to recognise it, what makes the fruit safe or unsafe to eat, the drinks and dishes made from the berries and the elderflowers, and the folklore that grew up around the tree across Europe and North America. A few questions follow the elder into pop culture, from a royal wedding to a wizard's wand. The quiz is for foragers, gardeners, home cooks and anyone who likes a good story behind an everyday plant. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave with a handful of elderberry fun facts worth repeating.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which royal bride's Windsor wedding featured a lemon and elderflower cake decorated with peonies?
Meghan Markle
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry picked London cake designer Claire Ptak for their 2018 wedding, and the choice was tipped to shape other British brides' cakes.
Q 02Which comedy troupe's 1975 film has a French knight hurl an insult about hamsters and elderberries?
Monty Python
Monty Python gave the taunt to a French soldier in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who mocks King Arthur from a castle with increasingly ludicrous insults.
Q 03Douro valley elder trees were once ordered uprooted to stop elderberry juice colouring which wine?
Port
Port shippers had been using the juice as a cheap dye, so the Douro Wine Company, established in 1756, banned it and mandated that the trees be torn up.
Q 04In which Joseph Kesselring comedy do two kindly aunts serve lonely old men glasses of elderberry wine?
Arsenic and Old Lace
Arsenic and Old Lace has the sisters lace their home-made wine with poison; it opened on Broadway in 1941 and ran for 1,444 performances.
Q 05Hollowed elderberry twigs were traditionally used as spiles to tap which trees for making syrup?
Maple
Maple sap ran through the twigs once their soft pith was pushed out, and the same hollow stems were also turned into blowguns and syringes.
Q 06Which Harry Potter novel did J. K. Rowling consider titling Harry Potter and the Elder Wand?
Deathly Hallows
Deathly Hallows won out as the name of the seventh book, in which a wand of elder wood is one of three legendary objects beside a stone and a cloak.
Q 07Which Italian liqueur, often served with three coffee beans, is named from the Latin for elderberry?
Sambuca
Sambuca was first the name of an elderberry liquor created in Civitavecchia around 1850; the modern drink gets its flavour from star anise instead.
Q 08Fresh-picked elderberries are mildly poisonous; what simple step makes the dark berries safe to eat?
Cooking them
Cooking them makes the berries fit for jam, jelly and chutney, but the leaves, bark and stems of the plant stay off the menu.
Q 09Which biblical figure supposedly hanged himself from an elder, giving the tree a grim nickname?
Judas
Judas Iscariot's supposed death gave the elder the name Judas Tree, and Christopher Marlowe repeated the story in his play The Jew of Malta.
Q 10Which piano-playing singer released the song Elderberry Wine as the B-side of a 1972 single?
Elton John
Elton John put Elderberry Wine on the flip side of Crocodile Rock, his first US number one, and recorded it for Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player.
Q 11Despite its name, the elderberry is botanically which type of fruit, the same kind as a cherry?
Drupe
Drupe is the botanist's term: each glossy fruit is only 6 to 8 mm across, holds three to five seeds and hangs in drooping clusters in late autumn.
Q 12Which South Tyrol cocktail mixes elderflower liqueur with prosecco, sparkling water and mint leaves?
Hugo
Hugo was devised in 2005 by bar manager Roland Gruber as an alternative to the Spritz Veneziano, and he picked the name at random after first choosing Otto.
Q 13Which soda brand sells an elderflower flavour named Shokata, after a traditional Romanian drink?
Fanta
Fanta Shokata is based on socată, a Romanian folk drink made by fermenting elder blossoms with lemon and sugar; soc is the Romanian name for the elder.
Q 21Which French liqueur uses elderflowers from Savoie that pickers often deliver by bicycle?
St-Germain
St-Germain was created by distiller Robert Cooper after he tried an elderflower cocktail in a London bar in 2001, and each bottle carries the year its petals were picked.
Q 22In J. K. Rowling's novels, the Elder Wand has a core of tail hair from which magical creature?
Thestral
Thestral tail hair sits inside the elder wood, and the wand's allegiance passes to whoever kills, defeats or disarms its owner.
Q 23Folklore in England and Scandinavia told woodcutters to do what before taking wood from an elder?
Ask its spirit's permission
Q 14A 100-gram serving of raw elderberries supplies about 40% of the daily value of which nutrient?
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is the standout nutrient; the berries are 80% water and 18% carbohydrates, with a moderate amount of vitamin B6 and little else.
Q 15Which instruments did some Native American tribes make from blue elderberry wood, besides clappers?
Flutes
Flutes and small whistles came from the easily hollowed stems, and the same soft wood served as a twirling stick for making fire by friction.
Q 16The Iroquois applied boiled elderberry inner bark to relieve which common ailment?
Toothache
Toothache was treated by holding the bark to the sorer side of the face; the leaves and inner bark of the shrub also served as an insecticide and a dye.
Q 17Elderberry supplement marketing surged during which outbreak, despite a lack of clinical trials?
COVID-19
COVID-19 brought a rush of elderberry products, and the US Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters to sellers who falsely claimed the supplements could treat disease.
Q 18Which fairy-tale author wrote The Elder-Tree Mother, in which an old man tells a sick boy a story?
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen later reworked the tale as a one-act piece for the stage, published in 1851.
Q 19In Germany and Scandinavia, elderberries are traditionally made into which dish, eaten as a meal?
Soup
Soup made from the berries is known in German as Fliederbeersuppe, and the fruit also goes into jam, chutney and a condiment called Pontack sauce.
Q 20A brown, gelatinous fungus that favours elder wood is named for its likeness to which body part?
Ear
Ear is the meaning of the Latin auricula in its scientific name, and the British Mycological Society recommends calling the fungus jelly ear.
Ask its spirit's permission, or the Elder Mother who guards the tree would bring ill luck; in one tale she pinches a baby whose cradle was mended with her wood.
Q 24Folklore says dwarf elder grows only on battlefields of which people, who gave the plant a nickname?
Danes
Danes gave the plant the name danewort, and its stems and leaves turn red in autumn, which may explain the link with spilled blood.
Q 25Which pigments, also found in blueberries and red cabbage, give elderberries their dark colour?
Anthocyanins
Anthocyanins make the juice an intense blue-purple that turns reddish when diluted with water, and it is approved as a natural food colouring.
Q 26Hallands Fläder, an akvavit flavoured with elderflowers, comes from which Nordic country?
Sweden
Sweden's south-west has a tradition of flavouring snaps with the blossoms, and Swedes also drink a diluted elderflower syrup called fläderblomsaft.
Q 27Which part of the elder is dipped into a light batter and fried to make fritters?
The flower heads
The flower heads are fried whole, and they are also steeped to make cordial, liqueurs and a mildly alcoholic sparkling drink nicknamed elderflower champagne.
Q 28Which acid is commonly added to elderflower cordial to help preserve it and sharpen the flavour?
Citric
Citric acid and lemon juice go into the sugar syrup with the steeped blossoms, and the finished cordial is usually diluted one part to ten of water.
Q 29A threatened longhorn beetle whose larvae live inside elderberry stems is native to which US state?
California
California's Central Valley, from Redding to Bakersfield, is the beetle's home range, and the adults emerge in spring just as the shrubs come into bloom.
Q 30Which craftsmen used the soft pith of elder stems to clean their tools before intricate work?
Watchmakers
Watchmakers relied on the spongy pith, the same soft core that was pushed out of twigs to turn them into whistles and tapping spouts.