This section is from the book "Field Book Of Western Wild Flowers", by Margaret Armstrong. Also available from Amazon: Field Book Of Western Wild Flowers.
In June and July, in the high Sierras, up to an altitude of four thousand feet, this lovely shrub forms fragrant thickets of bloom. It looks very much like the familiar garden Syringa and the smell is just as delicious. The bush is from four to twelve feet high, with smooth, pale, woody stems, dark-green leaves, sometimes slightly toothed, very smooth and shiny, and pretty flowers, in clusters at the ends of the branches. They are each about an inch across, with four or five, cream-white petals, rolled in the bud, and a golden center, composed of numerous, bright-yellow stamens.

Syringe PhiladelphusCaliformcus GOOSEBERRY FAMILY. Grossulariaceae.
 
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