What Makes American Elderberry’s Purple Special?
By Farmer Ben at Popple Tree Creek Farms
American elderberry’s deep purple is one of the first things you notice. Look closer, and that color tells a fascinating story about the berry itself.
At Popple Tree Creek Farms in northern Minnesota, we grow American elderberries and turn that remarkable fruit into foods we love sharing. One small part of the berry deserves a closer look: a particular pigment that researchers have repeatedly identified as a major feature of American elderberry.
Meet American elderberry’s signature pigment
Its scientific name is cyanidin-3-(E)-p-coumaroyl-sambubioside-5-glucoside. That is a mouthful, so we’ll call it the signature pigment from here on.
It belongs to the anthocyanin family, the natural pigments responsible for many red, purple, and blue plant colors. Anthocyanins are part of a larger family of plant compounds called flavonoids, which in turn belong to the polyphenols.
Think of the long name as a description of the molecule’s parts.
Cyanidin is its color-producing core.
Sambubioside and glucoside describe the sugars attached to that core.
The remaining part describes an attached group derived from p-coumaric acid and its arrangement.
Those pieces work together to give this particular pigment its chemical identity.
Researchers isolated and described it from American elderberry fruit in 1991. In the sample they analyzed, it represented 69.8% of the four identified anthocyanin pigments. It was a substantial part of the fruit’s pigment makeup.
The American elderberry connection
American elderberry, Sambucus canadensis, has a distinctive anthocyanin profile. European elderberry, Sambucus nigra, has a different one. Both contain cyanidin-based pigments, but the forms and proportions differ.
In a study comparing eight American elderberry genotypes with two European cultivars over two growing seasons, researchers found clearly different pigment profiles. The American berries were characterized by pigments including our signature compound; cyanidin-3-glucoside and cyanidin-3-sambubioside were the major pigments in the European cultivars.
A later study, published in 2020, examined five American cultivars: Adams, Johns, Nova, Wyldewood, and York. It again identified the signature pigment as predominant.
Finding it across those cultivars helps explain why it is such a useful part of the American elderberry story.
For us, that distinction makes the words “American elderberry” meaningful. They identify a fruit with its own characteristic chemistry. Knowing which elderberry you are growing or buying helps you understand what makes it special.
What the pigment actually does
Its most visible job is producing color. The cyanidin core absorbs particular wavelengths of visible light. The light that reaches our eyes gives us the red-to-purple hues we associate with elderberry.
The surrounding conditions matter, too. Anthocyanins can take different chemical forms as acidity changes, and those forms absorb light differently. That is why the same family of pigments can produce a range of colors in different foods and laboratory solutions.
Researchers studying American elderberry extracts found red colors under acidic conditions and blue colors under alkaline conditions.
They also found that ripening brought a large increase in anthocyanins. In the Nova and Wyldewood berries followed through ripening, the fully ripe fruit contained much more of these pigments than the half-ripe fruit.
That connects something we can see in the field with something scientists can measure: as the fruit ripens and deepens in color, its pigment chemistry is developing, too.
Where antioxidant chemistry comes in
Color is only one reason researchers study anthocyanins. Their molecular structure also allows them to participate in antioxidant reactions.
A free radical is a molecule with an unpaired electron, which can make it highly reactive. In chemical tests, anthocyanins can donate hydrogen or electrons to react with radicals. Their ring structure helps spread out the resulting change, making the reaction product more stable.
Scientists also study their ability to slow oxidation of fats in laboratory systems.
Our signature pigment sits within that cyanidin-based family. To understand American elderberry’s overall antioxidant activity, researchers also examine the berry’s complete mixture of anthocyanins and other polyphenols.
A 2010 study tested 14 American elderberry selections grown at one Ohio location. It used two laboratory methods: one measured radical-scavenging activity, and the other measured reducing power.
Higher total anthocyanin and phenolic levels were strongly associated with greater antioxidant capacity in those tests.
This is the scientific connection behind the interest in elderberry’s richly colored compounds. The pigments are chemically active parts of the fruit, and studying them helps researchers understand the berry as a whole.
Why this molecule matters when berries become food
A pigment’s usefulness also depends on how it behaves as fruit becomes juice, syrup, or another food. Food researchers care about how color responds to heat, light, and the recipe around it.
In a 1996 study of elderberry pigments for beverages, the signature compound from American elderberry showed greater heat and light stability than cyanidin-3-sambubioside, a major European elderberry pigment.
One reason is that small p-coumaric-acid-derived attachment mentioned earlier. Researchers call this feature acylation. Here, its practical significance is straightforward: the molecule’s structure helps it hold its color under the conditions studied.
That makes this pigment interesting to people working with real fruit. Understanding both the color and the chemistry gives growers and food makers more information about the ingredient they are starting with.
A berry worth getting to know
What draws us to American elderberry is the whole fruit: its flavor, its vivid color, and the plant compounds that give it its character. Learning the name of one pigment makes that familiar purple a little more interesting.
You can enjoy American elderberry in several ways from our farm:
Elderfruit Snack Bites — crunchy bites made with apple, banana, elderberry, oatmeal, and honey.
Raw Elderberry-Infused Honey — raw, unfiltered honey blended with freeze-dried elderberry juice, ready for toast, yogurt, or tea.
Our Elderberry Syrups — explore both Honey and Elixir, and find the flavor that fits your table.
From a cluster of berries in northern Minnesota to something delicious in your kitchen, that purple has a story. We’re glad to share a closer look at it.
Research references
Johansen, O. P., Andersen, Ø. M., Nerdal, W., and Aksnes, D. W. (1991). Cyanidin 3-[6-(p-coumaroyl)-2-(xylosyl)-glucoside]-5-glucoside and other anthocyanins from fruits of Sambucus canadensis. Phytochemistry, 30(12), 4137–4141. DOI: 10.1016/0031-9422(91)83481-Y.
Lee, J., and Finn, C. E. (2007). Anthocyanins and other polyphenolics in American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) and European elderberry (S. nigra) cultivars. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 87(14), 2665–2675. DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.3029.
Zhou, Y., Gao, Y. G., and Giusti, M. M. (2020). Accumulation of Anthocyanins and Other Phytochemicals in American Elderberry Cultivars during Fruit Ripening and its Impact on Color Expression. Plants, 9(12), 1721. DOI: 10.3390/plants9121721.
Kähkönen, M. P., and Heinonen, M. (2003). Antioxidant Activity of Anthocyanins and Their Aglycons. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 51(3), 628–633. DOI: 10.1021/jf025551i.
Özgen, M., Scheerens, J. C., Reese, R. N., and Miller, R. A. (2010). Total phenolic, anthocyanin contents and antioxidant capacity of selected elderberry (Sambucus canadensis L.) accessions. Pharmacognosy Magazine, 6(23), 198–203. DOI: 10.4103/0973-1296.66936.
Inami, O., Tamura, I., Kikuzaki, H., and Nakatani, N. (1996). Stability of Anthocyanins of Sambucus canadensis and Sambucus nigra. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 44(10), 3090–3096. DOI: 10.1021/jf9507809.
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