Common snowberry is a low, twiggy shrub that is easy to overlook in summer and hard to miss in winter. After its leaves drop, clusters of round white berries hang on the bare branches through the cold months, standing out against dark forest edges and brushy slopes.
Small white to pink flowers appear from late spring into summer and draw bumblebees, other bees and hummingbirds. The berries ripen in late summer and often stay on the plant all winter, giving grouse, songbirds and small mammals food and cover. Deer, elk and other browsers also nibble the twigs and leaves.
Snowberry is tough. It spreads by shallow underground stems and often forms dense thickets. When fire kills the top, the rhizomes survive and resprout quickly, making it one of the first plants to green up a burned slope, and light fires can leave it denser than before. It grows everywhere from dry, sunny hillsides to streamside benches, prefers open ground and tolerates some shade.
Look for it along trails at lower and middle elevations, especially where forest gives way to openings. The berries are not for people to eat.
How to identify it
A densely branched shrub usually 3 to 4.5 feet tall, with thin twigs and opposite, oval leaves under 2 inches long that are smooth-edged or have a few coarse teeth. Leaves on young shoots are often larger and more irregular. Small white to pink flowers are followed by clusters of white berries about half an inch long that last into winter.
Habitat
Open forests, thickets, forest edges and open slopes from low elevations to the middle mountains, on both sides of the Cascades. It handles dry, sunny slopes as well as moist streamside benches.
Photos
Sightings in the forest
430 research-grade sightings in Mt. Hood National Forest on iNaturalist, most recently on November 3, 2026. See them on iNaturalist →