Wild White Lilac
Ceanothus Velutinus, Dougl. Buckthorn Family
Widely branching shrubs, two to six feet or more high. Leaves.—Alternate; petioled; roundish, or broadly ovate; eighteen lines to three inches long; polished, resinous above; somewhat pubescent beneath; strongly three-nerved. Flowers.—White; three lines across; in large, dense, compound clusters four or five inches long and wide. (See Ceanothus for flower structure.) Hab.—Coast Ranges; Columbia River, southward to San Francisco Bay; also eastward to Colorado.
Its ample bright-green, highly varnished leaves and large white flower-clusters make this a very beautiful species of Ceanothus. The foliage is glutinous with a gummy exudation, which has a rather disagreeable odor. Yet the shrub would be very handsome in cultivation.