We have one of these flowering bushes amongst a large group of Ocean Spray. I'm hoping it's a native plant. I can't find it in my books though. It's about 3 metres high so a little taller than most of the Ocean Spray around it. I think the flowers are about 4cm across. It's also not been particularly healthy until this year. Thanks.
Mine has flowers with 5 petals, so does that rule out Philadelphus lewisii? I could be wrong about the 5 petals. I'll have a closer look when I get home. I'll also smell them because I don't remember smelling anything extraordinary when I took the photo.
The main subject of the photo has 5, but most of the others I can spot in the image have 4 - Plants of Coastal BC says "usually 4".
Right you are and now that I've pulled some of the branches close enough to count, the majority of them are 4-petal. I'd originally ruled out Mock Orange because the photo of it in my book (Plants of the Gulf & San Juan Islands and Southern Vancouver Island) looked nothing like my plant. The 2nd and 3rd photos in your link look exactly like it. I'm still not getting the fragrant part of it though. Thanks for the ID and I'm glad it's a native plant.
Plenty of other species and garden hybrids of Philadelphus do resemble it though. Any reason why it should be a native one, rather than a planted shrub of an introduced one?
It could be an introduced shrub but I don't think it's a planted one. It's in the middle of a bunch of Ocean Spray and all the bushes appear quite a bit older than the subdivision. There are a few next door I've had a closer look at and the photo in my book looks more like them. What I thought was individual flowers that looked like traditional roses was clusters of four-petal flowers. Are there any other identifying features I could look for?
That would favour a wild plant, though I'd be cautious about anything close to an urban area. Although native to Vancouver Island, it may be significant that the Atlas of the Plants of British Columbia records P. lewisii as a submontane to subalpine species with a minumum altitude of 150m: http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/Atlas/Atlas.aspx?sciname=Philadelphus+lewisii (scroll down to 'Ecology'). Would that encompass your plant, or not? On other species, I've never found a good key to the commonly cultivated mock-oranges, so am not too sure how to tell them apart, unfortunately. There's a key to the Chinese species here, but it of course doesn't help distinguish them from P. lewisii, nor does it include the numerous garden cultivars: http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=124975
Fails elevation (it's at about 32 m). Slope is about 45 degrees so that's average. Aspect is at the northern limit. That's the limit of my understanding from the ecology table.
Working with original premise that it was native. That other species in the same genus look like it superficially goes without saying. Most common of planted ones here, which does have similar leaves to P. lewisii is P. coronarius. However, sprig (and background growth) in photo looks like many native ones here, and not like many P. coronarius. I drive by similar ~scrubby P. lewisii growing among Holodiscus every time I come out here to Camano Island. Seen at low elevations in many other western WA locations, even urbanized Seattle, implying it would also occur near sea level on Vancouver Island.
