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Ancestor: Sambucus (Elderberry Plants) 

Size: Can grow up to  12 metres tall

Life Cycle: This tree begins reproduction in late spring. First they produce  bunches of tiny flowers. These flowers have both male and female parts, so they are able to both produce and receive pollen. This pollen is spread primarily by insects and the wind. When fertilized, the flowers will drop their petals and swell into fruit. These fruit grow over the summer. These fruit vary in texture. In some species they are light and papery with a sweet smell but not much if any pulp. Of those, some species will simply open their papery capsule and drop the seeds. Others have slimy, unweildy seeds so that when an animal carries the fruit off to eat what little edible matter there is to it, they will drop the seeds. Not all fruit are dry, in some species the skin instead forms a hard chitinous shell around the fruit. There is wet pulp, but seeds take up most of the fruit. As before, these seeds are slimy and unwieldy. They will be dropped if an animal breaks the fruit open, usually rodents. If no animal opens the fruit, it'll split on it's own eventually.

Seeds don't sprout the same year as they drop. Those lucky to become embedded in the soil or covered under a pile of leaves wait out the harsh winter, those left too exposed will die. The young plant emerges from the seed when spring brings warmth.

Although many seeds are produced per fruit (between 10 and 150, depending on species) and the tree can produce many thousands of fruit in a season, throughout it's life few of a tree's seeds ever reach maturity to become one of the large canopy-forming trees. Each following year a few of the seeds will manage to sprout and form small trees, but most of them don't last much beyond a few more years. They make up much of the shrubby ground cover that is always rapidly changing. Those that survive to maturity usually did so by being in the right place at the right time, such as sprouting in an opening left behind by a fallen or lightning-struck older tree, and being the fastest (or first) tree to grow into that opening.

Other: This is just one of many trees frequented by the folivorous mouse. Folivorous mice in high population density can damage a tree with their browsing. Different trees have dadapted in different ways to deal with this. The donorelder produces two different leaf types. The main dark tough leaf foliage grows from the ends of branches and makes up the leaves most exposed to the sun. Smaller, lighter sacrificial leaves cover the large main branches in the canopy layer. The sacrificial leaves are inexpensive compared to the main leaves. These leaves also have very few leaflets, and often lack symmetry. Their function doesn't require anything besides offering a sweeter distraction for the folivorous mice than the main leaves that the tree needs so badly.