Description: Small to medium sized tree with short trunk and broad rounded crown of light green foliage.

Height: 9-18 m

Diameter: 0.8 m

Leaves: opposite; pinnately compound; 15 cm long; with slender axis. three to seven leaflets sometimes slightly lobed, 5-10 cm long, 2.5-4 cm wide; paired and short-stalked (except at end); ovate or elliptical, long-pointed at tip, short-pointed at base; coarsely sawtoothed, sometimes lobed. Light green and mostly hairless above, paler and varying in hairiness beneath; turning yellow (or sometimes red) in autumn.

Bark: light grey-brown; with many narrow ridges and fissures, becoming deeply furrowed.

Twigs: green, often whitish or purplish; slender, ringed at nodes, mostly hairless.

Flowers: 5 mm long; with very small, yellow-green calyx of five lobes or sepals; several clustered on slender, drooping stalks; male and female on separate trees; before leaves in early spring.

Fruit: 2.5-4 cm long; paired, slightly forking keys with flat, narrow body and long, curved wing; pale yellow; one-seeded; maturing in summer and remaining attached in winter.

Habitat: Wet or moist soils along stream banks and in valleys, with various hardwoods.

Range: S Alberta east to extreme S Ontario and New York, south to central Florida, and west to S Texas; also scattered from New Mexico to California; to 2400m in the southwest.

Boxelder is classed with maples, having similar, paired keyed fruits, but is easily distinguishable by the pinnately compound leaves. Hardy and fast-growing, but is short-lived and easily broken in storms. Plains Indians made sugar from the sap. The common name indicates the resemblance of the foliage to that of elders (Sambucus) and the whitish wood to that of Box (Buxus sempervirens L.)

Information: Audubon (1980)

Source: Weasdale Nurseries (2, bare rooted), Lennox-Boyd garden opening (1, pot grown). The latter was grown from seed collected in the British embassy compound in Washington DC.

Purchased: Two autumn 1993, one in autumn 1997.

Planted: One at C7D and one at B13E on Christmas Eve, 1993. The latter clearly found its site too dry (and possibly shaded), and was moved to B0C in spring 1997, where it did much better. Both of these are in the "Rocky Mountain Riparian" zone. The most recent purchase was moved to a much larger pot shortly after purchase, and then planted in early February 1998 at B64D in the "Prairie Riparian" zone. This seems to have established quickly, though no doubt all three specimens were helped by the very mild 1997/8 winter.

Progress: none is exactly racing away. The one at B0C did OK until a nearby willow started to grow rather big and I failed to notice its shading effect on the boxelder and a cottonwood. The boxelder has lost all its leaves early, and may not be forming buds for next year. The willow will be severely coppiced this winter (2004/5), but this may be too late. The other two are at about 2.7m, but remain rather fastigiate, whereas trees I have seen in the wild have been much more spreading. I suspect they aren't fond of our cool wet summers or mild wet winters.

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