The elder tree is a familiar sight in both town and country, and a good seasonal marker. It is said that the 'English summer is not here until the elder is fully in flower, and that it ends when the berries are ripe' (Grieve 1971). This common pan-European tree with its 'flat-topped masses of creamy-white, fragrant blossoms', has provided several traditional herbal remedies since prehistoric days: Elder flower, berry, bark and leaf. The most versatile and widely used of these, however, is the flower, which therefore deserves a fresh look as a potential neo-Chinese medicinal herb. Elderflower is the whole flower corymb of Sambucus nigra in the honeysuckle (Caprifoliaceae) family. Its pharmaceutical name is Flos sambuci (using the Chinese method of pharmaceutical nomenclature).