In message , Jake
writes
On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:57:12 +0100, "Bob Hobden"
wrote:

Nick wrote
Bob Hobden wrote:
"kay" wrote
ploppygb Wrote:
I have the following two plants in my garden and don't know what they
are. Could someone please help? Both photos are vary zoomed in.
The
purple "flowers" are about 2-3 inches long.

http://tinyurl.com/6enlkzo

Mock Orange (Syringa). It should be strongly fragrant.

I think it's a Philadelphus.

Yes, but she was posting English and you are posting Latin!

One of the common names for plants in the genus Phildelphus is
syringa, though Syringa is the generic name for lilac :-)
There are lots of gotchas like that ....


Well I learn something every day, I've never in my life heard Mock Orange
called syringa.

Vita Sackville-West wrote in 1948 that "...the lilac should be in
flower. It is not called lilac now by the experts. it is called
syringa; and what we used to call syringa is now called philadelphus".
So mock orange was syringa before lilac was.

The use of Syringa as the generic name for lilacs goes back to Species
Plantarum (1753). Before Linnaeus's time Syringa was applied to both
lilacs and mock-oranges, sometimes by the same author.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley