Plant-Lore

Collecting the folklore and uses of plants

Snowberry

1 .  Snowberry was planted in cemeteries because its white fruits were symbolic of purity [Nunhead Cemetery, London, August 2021].

2. Popping berry in Swedish – great fun to play with! [London, December 2020]

3.  Gouda, Netherlands:  we lived opposite a park where the council had planted snowberry in profusion, in autumn we would go out with PVC pipes and shoot each other (and the neighbours’ windows) with the berries [e-mail, July 2017].

4.  Snowberry, Symphoricarpos rivularis [syn. S. albus] – the juice of the berry on the skin caused warts. Kent 1930s. I tried this once on a thigh and some time later three warts appeared. Fortunately they rubbed off easily [Farnham, Surrey, December 1985].

Image: cultivated, Brampton, Cambridgeshire; September 2015.