trailing snowberry (creeping snowberry)
Caprifoliaceae (Valerian family)
Introduction to Vascular Plants
Species Information
General:
Deciduous, trailing shrub; stems reclining, 1-3 m long, often rooting at the nodes, forming small tubers, and producing erect branches to 60 cm high; twigs slightly short-hairy.
Leaves:
Opposite, on stalks 1-3 mm long, egg-shaped to elliptic, 1-3 cm long, 0.5-2 cm wide, entire or sometimes with a few coarse teeth or shallow lobes; leaves on vigorous shoots often larger and more frequently toothed or lobed, slightly hairy at least beneath.
Flowers:
Inflorescence a short terminal cluster of a few flowers, sometimes also a few flowers in the upper leaf axils; corollas widely and often asymmetrically bell-shaped, pale pink, 3-5 mm long, tubular at the bases, flaring to 5 lobes almost as long as the tubes; tubes with collars of short hairs around the top inside; styles 2-3 mm long, glabrous, about as long as the tubes; stamens as long as corolla lobes, the anthers 1 mm long, a little shorter than the filaments.
Fruits:
Berrylike drupes, clustered, white, nearly globose, 5-6 mm long; nutlets 2, each enclosing a single seed.
Illustration
If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.
Illustration Source: The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
Ecology
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from
original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range.
(Updated August, 2013)
| Site Information |
Value / Class |
||
|
Avg |
Min |
Max |
|
| Elevation
(metres) |
196 | 10 | 800 |
| Slope
Gradient (%) |
16 | 0 | 90 |
|
Aspect (degrees) |
178 | 20 | 360 |
| Soil
Moisture Regime (SMR) [0 - very xeric; 4 - mesic; 8 - hydric] |
2 | 0 | 5 |
| Modal
Nutrient Regime
Class |
C | ||
| #
of field plots species was recorded in: |
182 | ||
| Modal
BEC Zone Class |
CWH | ||
|
All BEC Zones (# of stations/zone) species was recorded in |
CDF(65), CWH(116), IDF(1) | ||
|
Source:
Klinkenberg 2013
|
|||
Habitat and Range
Mesic to dry forests in the lowland zone; locally common on SE Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and the lower Fraser Valley; S to N ID and CA.Status Information
Synonyms
Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Symphoricarpos mollis Nutt.
Symphoricarpos mollis subsp. hesperius (G.N. Jones) Abrams ex Ferris
Symphoricarpos mollis var. hesperius (G.N. Jones) Cronquist
Taxonomic Keys
KEY TO SYMPHORICARPOS
1. Stems trailing and rooting at the nodes, the branches rising less than 50 cm................S. hesperius
1. Stems erect, more or less branching, 0.3-3 m tall.
2. Corollas relatively short and wide, the lobes nearly equalling the tubes.
3. Styles short, not exserted from the corolla tube, glabrous. |