HERB - Elder flowers

Gaylin Walli g.walli at infoengine.com
Wed Sep 2 15:12:13 PDT 1998


>Did the flowers turn dark after being frozen?  Did you take them off the
>stems or leave them in clusters as for elder blow fritters?

Although OOP, here's what M. Grieve has to say about elder flower
preservation -- jasmine

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Elder Flowers are chiefly used in pharmacy in the fresh state
for the distillation of Elder Flower Water, but as the flowering
season only lasts for about three weeks in June, the flowers
are often salted, so as to be available for distillation at a
later season, 10 per cent of common salt being added, the flowers
being them termed 'pickled.' They are also dried, for making
infusions.

The flowers are collected when just in full bloom and thrown
into heaps, and after a few hours, during which they become
slightly heated the corollas become loosened and can then be
removed by sifting. The Elder 'flowers' of pharmacy consist of
the small white wheel-shaped, five-lobed, monopetalous corollas
only, in the short tube of which the five stamens with very
short filaments and yellow anthers are inserted. When fresh, the
flowers have a slightly bitter taste and an odour scarcely pleasant.
The pickled flowers, however, gradually acquire an agreeable
fragrance and are therefore generally used for the preparation
of Elder Flower Water. A similar change also takes place in the
water distilled from the fresh flowers.

In domestic herbal medicines, the dried flowers are largely used
in country districts and are sold by herbalists either in dried
bunches of flowers, or sifted free from flower stalks. The flowers
are not easily dried of good colour. If left too late exposed to
the sun before gathering, the flowers assume a brownish colour
when dried, and if the flower bunches are left too long in heaps,
to cause the flowers to fall off, these heaps turn black. If the
inflorescence is only partly open when gathered, the flower-heads
have to be sifted more than once, as the flowers do not open all
at the same time. The best and lightest coloured flowers are
obtained at the first sifting, when the flowers that have matured
and fallen naturally are free from stalks, and dried quickly in a
heated atmosphere. They may be very quickly dried in a heated
copper pan, being stirred about for a few minutes. They can also
be dried almost as quickly in a cool oven, with the door open.
Quickness in drying is essential.

The dried flowers, which are so shrivelled that their details are
quite obscured, have a dingy, brownish-yellow colour and a faint,
but characteristic odour and mucilaginous taste. As a rule, imported
flowers have a duller yellow colour and inferior odour and are
sold at a cheaper rate. When the microscope does not reveal tufts
of short hairs in the sinuses of the calyx, the drug is not of this
species. Most pharmacopoeias specify that dark brown or blackish
flowers should be rejected. This appearance may be due to their
having been collected some time after opening, to carelessness in
drying, or to having been preserved too long.
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