Native Plants

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Sunday - May 17, 2015

From: Harrington Park, NJ
Region: Northeast
Topic: Plant Identification, Shrubs, Trees
Title: Identification of white flowering bush with lovely scent
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

Please identify the sweet smelling white flowering bush/tree blooming now,May, in western Massachusetts. The flowers are tiny 4(?) petals in small clusters. The scent is wonderful.

ANSWER:

This Smarty Plants' best guess is a white lilac (Syringa vulgaris) bush/tree. As it happens, I am in southern Vermont at the moment and lilacs, both purple and white, are in full bloom. The lilac is native to the Balkan Peninsula of Europe but has become naturalized in the rest of Europe and in North America. Here is a photograph of a white lilac blossom and you can see that each individual small blossom has four petals. The scent of the lilacs is wonderful!