This shrub is growing on the north side of our new house and is quite tall and leggy. It had single white blossoms which were delicate, i.e. fell off the branches easily. Sorry these are fall photos. The leaves were dark green in the summer and the blooms were late, possibly due to lack of sun. I'm wondering if this is the BC native, in which case I will try to propagate for my native hedgerow. Thank you.
Species in this genus are told apart in dichotomous keys in manuals (such as those by L.H. Bailey or Alfred Rehder) using fine details of stem, leaf and flower characters. If it were my project I would consult such tools and also compare samples of the specimen in question with known examples elsewhere, at flowering time.
Thanks Ron B. I had a feeling this was going to be a tough one. There is a copy of L.H. Bailey at our downtown library, but reviews lament its lack of native plant species. Alfred Rehder is not readily available. My Pojar/Makinnon was not helpful except that they describe the leaves as 3 - 5 cm long and mine are up to 10, which I suspect may be due to the shrub growing mostly in shade. As you suggested, I'll wait until it flowers and do some comparisons. p.s. This is a pretty good reference but the European P. coronarius is very similar to my eye. http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/Atlas/Atlas.aspx?sciname=Philadelphus lewisii
Key in 1949 Bailey manual covers all species this is likely to be, with the native represented both as P. gordonianus and P. lewisii (as two separate species).
Down here if a different branch within the same public library system has a desired title you can have it sent to the library nearest you. There will also be plant manuals at college libraries there in Victoria. Otherwise, you may be able to go to Vancouver at flowering time and get a match. Both Van Dusen and UBC Botanical have small, publicly accessible horticultural libraries at their offices, and there are of course public and college libraries elsewhere in Vancouver and vicinity. The two major botanical gardens in Vancouver do also have live, labeled specimens of various shrubs growing in their collections (I do not remember what specific representation of mock oranges each has, but one or both may have searchable plant records on the internet). And there are probably wild mock oranges growing somewhere near you on the island. If you get to a site where they appear to be the native, and not seeded out or lingering cultivated species like sweet mock orange then you can compare yours with those.
