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I nearly made a silly mistake yesterday. We haven't been in our house quite a year yet so are still seeing some trees and plants do things for the first time. There's a tree on the 'lawn' (ha ha) that has suddenly come into flower and I was thrilled to see it was an elderflower tree. Didn't quite get round to denuding it of blooms for cordial yesterday but mentioned it to Mr D'ville, who said he thought it was a Rowan. I went out to look this morning and Googled it and it is, in fact, a Rowan. The flowers looked so like elder and the leaves are similar so I didn't questions it, though I did notice there wasn't the characteristic elderflower smell.

I've found lots of information on rowan berries, but nothing on the flowers. Is there anything you can do with them? Are they toxic? Would I have killed us all making rowanflower cordial?!!

Hmm, gets me thinking again about Rowan as a name for this little bean if it's a girl...

Well, they don't appear on any toxicity list. The immature berries do (very mild toxicity) but that's it. Of course, being non-toxic doesn't necessarily mean that they'll taste anything like good. I think it's best to do the safe thing - when in doubt, leave well alone.

Makes a nice jelly. Tart, almost a replacement for cranberry

Also found this wine recipe.
http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/brewi ... berry-wine

I've got no records of the flowers being used for anything, not even winemaking. Probably getting as far a brewing them up wouldn't have done you any harm, but the result might not have tasted particularly good.

Never mind. Rowan berries are great for birdlife, and as has already been mentioned can be used for preserves and winemaking.