When does American black elderberry bloom in Mississippi?

Most often in June. Across 194 dated, research-grade observations of Sambucus canadensis in Mississippi, the flowering season runs roughly June.

Peak June In flower 194 Examined 530 State Mississippi

Flowering 194 in flower of 530 examined

16%

62%

86%

28%

13%

Proportion of examined Sambucus canadensis in Mississippi in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	3	19	16%	6% to 38%
Feb	0	23	0%	0% to 14%
Mar	0	53	0%	0% to 7%
Apr	3	62	5%	2% to 13%
May	83	133	62%	54% to 70%
Jun	83	97	86%	77% to 91%
Jul	12	43	28%	17% to 43%
Aug	2	38	5%	1% to 17%
Sep	0	15	0%	0% to 20%
Oct	5	18	28%	13% to 51%
Nov	1	13	8%	1% to 33%
Dec	2	16	13%	4% to 36%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Sambucus canadensis in Mississippi observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 194 of 530 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.wt38fd.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a record of when people in Mississippi found Sambucus canadensis in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Mississippi, so it is not the species’ global average dragged onto a map: the same plant flowers on different dates in different places, and that is the entire point of the page.

It will not tell you what your particular plant will do this year. Bloom time moves with the season, with altitude, and with the weather, and a warm February pulls everything forward. We publish the distribution and the sample size, and we refuse to draw a month that too few people examined.

The plant

Sambucus canadensis

American black elderberry

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in Mississippi. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.