White flowers hanging like bells

[Daniel Mosquin]

The following was received via email:

Over 30 years ago, I lived in the small coastal town, Fortuna, in Northern California. Every year around Easter, churches, schools, municipal offices and homes were decked with stems of the most marvelous, white, flowering shrub.

Of course I can't remember the name of it and of course, I have no pictures of it.

I've even contacted churches and City Hall, but apparently either no one notices them or the practice of using them has fallen from favour because my search came up empty.

The shrub looked like a young, green willow with the flowers coming before the leaves.
The flowers were 'bells' and although they hung in line along the underside
of each 'branch', there were graceful masses of them. Beautiful to look at and a beautiful fragrance, too.

The area is blessed with 66 inches of rainfall each year, so mowing the lawn starts
early and, before they bloomed, one had to watch that the mower didn't massacre
the plants. Mine almost did and if it weren't for the shrieks of a friend, I'd likely never have known I had a specimen in my front yard.

Once flowering was done and the leaves were out, the plant was fairly nondescript and frankly, I don't remember what they looked like. As we lived there only 8 months, I've no idea how high the plant/shrub might reach either. Ours was about 2' tall,
very smooth bark.

If you've *any* ideas or can point me in the direction of someone who might, I'd
certainly appreciate hearing from you.

[Daniel Mosquin]

What was the height of the plants you remember seeing in yards?

[jimmyq]

a guess from me before Ron B id's it for you :)

Exochorda (pearlbush)