Symphoricarpos

Also called Indian currant, coralberry is a dense, suckering deciduous shrub of the honeysuckle family, native to the eastern and central United States and northeastern Mexico, where it grows in open woods, thickets, fields and bottomland woods. It makes a mound of arching, finely hairy stems 2 to 5 feet tall that spreads by runners into colonies, carries small greenish-white to pink-tinged flowers that are easy to miss, and is grown for the clusters of coral-red to purple berries that ripen in fall and hang on the bare stems through most of winter. Two things to weigh first: NC State Extension lists the fruit as poisonous to people (low severity, causing vomiting and diarrhea), and it can be weedy: NC State tags it so, and Kew's World Checklist records it as naturalized beyond its native range in New England, New York, the interior West, Ontario and parts of Europe. On a slope, in a woodland edge or in a wildlife planting, its suckering is an asset rather than a chore.

Snowberry is a deciduous, suckering North American shrub native across Canada and the northern and western United States, prized for its waxy, snow-white berries that persist well into winter after the leaves have dropped. It tolerates a wide range of soils and exposures - full sun to deep shade, chalk to clay - making it one of the most adaptable shrubs in the genus. The honest catch is threefold: the berries are toxic to humans (causing vomiting), the rhizomatous root system can colonise an area to form dense, hard-to-remove thickets, and the plant spreads aggressively in moist soils - so it is a plant that earns its place in naturalistic or wildlife plantings but demands a firm boundary in a tidy garden.