The tutor, continuing with his identification of familiar plants, shares another find.

One guide compares the creamy clouds of flowers on oceanspray (Holodiscus discolor) to lilacs, but they’re less structured than some lilac flowers; I’d say their stems are softer and reach further from the main branch. From my observations, lilac limbs are heavier than oceanspray ones as well.

Oceanspray is very common around here; it’s often an ornamental, but just as often an accidental on the fringe of a woodsy patch. As the guide suggests, the flowers turn brown but stay on the bush. The leaves are serrated.

Oceanspray might be up to 10 feet tall. Its thin limbs lean outward. My guide says it’s common all over Vancouver Island, as well as on the south BC and Washington coast.

Source:

Pojar, Jim and Andy MacKinnon. Plants of Coastal British Columbia. Vancouver:
   BC Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing, 1994.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.