1. We used to stamp on the fruits and make them pop!  Still do when I see them [Paignton, Devon, June 2025].

2. We used to pop the fruits on the way to school, that was in Notting Hill, London [Brockwell Park, London, June 2024].

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

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

5.  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].

6.  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].

Images: main, cultivated, Brampton, Cambridgeshire, September 2015; planted Tiergarten, Berlin, October 2024.