Snowberries for Winter

Several trees and shrubs have fruits that persist through the winter, adorning bare branches like miniature Christmas ornaments. Common snowberry, a native plant, is dotted with tumbling clusters of white berries that are very eye-catching during the fall and winter months. These white fruits add a touch of brightness to the green, grey landscape of a coastal winter.

Common Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) is an attractive shrub that is abundant in our area. It has a delicate appearance, with small leaves and numerous, twiggy branches. Like most members of the honeysuckle family, snowberry has branches and leaves that are positioned opposite each other. The leaves are small and egg-shaped, with smooth or wavy-toothed margins. Older stems are dark grey to brown with shredding bark. Snowberry can form bushy thickets, and usually grows up to two metres high.

Though snowberry often goes unnoticed, it is beautiful throughout the year. The unfurling leaves provide an exciting flush of greenery in the early spring. In the late spring to early summer, small and charming pink or white flowers are produced. Best appreciated with a hand lens, the petals are fused at the base to form a tube. Several of these tiny flowers bloom at the tips of the branches.

Fruits begin to develop in the early fall, sometimes even while the plant is still blooming. After the leaves have dropped, the spongy white berries, called “snowballs” by some, remain clinging to the branches. Snowberry fruits are round and waxy, with a spongy texture, and are about the size of a marble. Though berry like, they are actually “drupes”. A drupe is a fleshy fruit with a hard pit that contains a seed, such as a plum cherry, or nectarine. The snowberry fruit has two pits, or “nutlets”, each of which houses a seed.

Snowberries are poisonous to humans, though fatalities are quite rare. First Nations peoples generally didn’t eat them, and called them “corpse berries” or “snake berries”. Some tribes thought that they were the ghosts of Saskatoon berries, and belonged to the unearthly spirit realm.

Snowberries are not toxic to birds and provide valuable winter forage for robins, varied thrush, finches, grouse and other birds. Snowberry thickets also provide cover and protection, and are often favourable sites for building nests.

Though snowberries can be propagated from seed, they also spread by rhizomes. Rhizomes are horizontal, underground stems that are anchored by roots. Snowberry becomes quickly established, and is often used in restoration projects to stabilize stream banks and areas that are subject to erosion.

Common snowberry grows at low to mid elevations in open forest, ravines, and along beaches. Though snowberry favours moist but well-drained soil, it is also frequents stream banks and river flood plains.

Common snowberry is found throughout BC, and a slightly different variety occupies eastern sections of the province. Snowberry is also widespread throughout North America, but is endangered in some of the eastern United States. Snowberry was introduced to England in 1817 as a cover for game birds, and is now naturalized in Britain.

Snowberry makes a fine garden plant, and is easily transplanted. It does however, grow fast and may spread over time, so care should be taken when deciding on a suitable location.

One other species of snowberry is found in BC, known as trailing snowberry (Symphoricarpos hesperius). This species is smaller than common snowberry, and is typically found trailing over the ground, where it roots at the nodes. Trailing snowberry grows in fairly dry, open areas at low elevations along southeast Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and adjacent mainland. Flowers and fruits are similar, but smaller than Common Snowberry. Twigs are hairier than the latter.

Snowberry and many other plants are part of the mosaic of our coastal ecosystems. Common snowberry, with its decorative white winter fruits, should be a familiar sight to all of us. With more knowledge and awareness, this beautiful shrub can be noticed and enjoyed throughout the year.

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