Keyed Out #110 — Syringa vulgaris

Question 1

Each small tubular flower spreads four lobes, but only two {stamens} ride the inside of the tube on very short {filaments}, not the four or five that crowd a comparable throat.

Accepted Answer

olive family

Question 2

Its leaves are borne two to a {node} in opposite pairs, on stems round in section that give off no aromatic oil when crushed, and nothing like a small paired appendage guards the leaf base.

Accepted Answer

Oleaceae

Question 3

The spent flowers ripen into a dry leathery brown pod 0.4 to 0.8 inch (1 to 2 cm) long that splits down two seams to shed flat winged seeds, never into fleshy pulp around a single hard stone.

Accepted Answer

Syringa

Question 4

Its flowers are massed into one dense pyramidal plume 4 to 10 inches (10 to 25 cm) long at the tip of the shoot, not scattered in ones and small bunches along the twig in the angles above the leaves.

Accepted Answer

Syringa

Question 5

The deciduous blades are broad and distinctly heart-shaped at the base with a perfectly smooth margin, 2 to 5 inches (5 to 13 cm) long, not elliptic blades tapering to a wedge at both ends.

Accepted Answer

Syringa vulgaris

Question 6

It blooms in mid to late spring in violet to mauve trusses carrying a sweet and heavy perfume, well ahead of the creamy-white, musky, privet-scented flowering of early summer.

Accepted Answer

Syringa vulgaris