Symphoricarpos albus laevigatus

Identification

Description

(Symphoricarpos racemosus, Symphoricarpos rivularis, S. rivularis laevigatus, S. albus laevigatus) Common Snowberry is a chin-high, deciduous shrub, gradually forming a thicket by way of its rhizomes, or underground stems. Snowberry is native to the coast ranges, San Luis Obispo north to Alaska. It has edible, white berries. (Before you get all excited, they taste like bitter Ivory soap. The Thrashers will eat them when everything else is eaten, but they have a silly gagged look as they choke the berries down. Dazed and confused fits in with everything else around here, though. The berries rot on the bushes in good years, in bad they do not even get a chance to ripen. Snowberry likes sun to shade, some summer water. Hummingbirds visit this in summer when the small, pinkish flowers are on it. In the fall, on wet years, or if regularly watered, snowberry is very beautiful as the bush becomes overloaded and the branches start to arch from the weight of all the white berries developing at the tips of the branches This is a nice underused plant. If you live in an area of snow it is an effective large scale groundcover. Its root system is vigorous and deep enough to hold most banks. Snowberry is stream-side in many locales and would be an excellent restoration plant. This plant is native down the road from us where there is a little more moisture. There, the rainfall range seems to be 25" per year and up. Soils do not seem to matter as long as the drainage is fair. This vigorous species can take the interior conditions a whole lot better than Symphoricarpos mollis, Creeping Snowberry, but Creeping Snowberry is a better choice in very coastal areas with shade.