Sambucus schweriniana Rehder.

Herbs, suffrutescent, or low shrubs, 1-2 m tall, rhizomatous. Pith of roots and rhizomes white or red. Stem herbaceous, obviously striate; pith white or red; lenticels absent. Leaves imparipinnate; stipules bladelike or linear; leaflets 3-5 pairs, narrowly elliptic to narrowly ovate or lanceolate, 4-15 × 1.5-2.5 cm, abaxially sparsely pubescent, more densely pubescent on veins, base obtuse and oblique, margin serrate, apex acuminate; terminal pair of leaflets often connate at base along rachis, sometimes connected also with terminal leaflet, remaining leaflets alternate or sometimes subopposite; stipules of leaflets reduced to urceolate glands. Inflorescences terminal, pedunculate, with 3-5 rays, umbellate cymes, 12-15 cm broad and tall, with dense yellow pubescence when young and ± glandular hairy. Flowers all normal, not reduced to glands, 4-5 mm in diam.; calyx urceolate, pubescent; corolla white; filaments dilated at base, anthers yellow; ovary locules 3; styles short or nearly absent; stigma 3-lobed. Fruit orange or red, becoming black on drying, globose, 3-4 mm in diam.; pyrenes ovoid, ca. 2 × 1.5 mm, rugose or smooth. Fl. May-Jul(-Sep), fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 36*.

Forests, thickets, streamsides, moist shaded mountain slopes, alpine grasslands; 1600-3600 m. Gansu, Guizhou, Hubei, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India (Darjeeling, Sikkim)].