Jazzy Jasmine

Photo: HumanityAshore

What do the following tropical plants have in common? Jasminum, buddleia paniculata, gardenia, orange jessamine, plumeria, wrightia, fiddlewood, alstonia, michelia alba, cestrum nocturnum. Actually they have two points of similarity. One, they are all white flowering shrubs or trees; two, they are all sweet-smelling.

I have deliberatetely placed the jasmine first in the above list because, along with the lotus, it is the most revered flower in South East Asia. The national flower both of the Philippines and Indonesia, in Thailand it is an essential accompaniment to most religious ceremonies, festivals and celebrations. A symbol of motherhood, its price rockets skywards on Mother’s Day, when a kilo of flower buds will fetch 1000 baht instead of the usual 200. Perhaps it is significant that these jasmine buds form the topmost section of our floral garland. For this purpose, they have to be picked at night or in the early morning before they open and start to lose their heady aroma.

The genus is large, with some 200 species, and surprisingly, true jasmines are a member of the olive or oleaceae brigade. However, there are not only many sub-species, but an increasing numbers of cultivars. To complicate things still further, jasmines have been re-classified botanically, and some, previously allotted to the jasminum family, have been sent elsewhere.

But make no mistake, the one we are talking about, jasminum sambac or Arabian jasmine, is genuine. Ask any Thai what doc mali is, and they will know – instantly. It features in most Thai gardens and hails not from Arabia but from right here.

The shrub’s appearance is not that spectacular, with smallish white blooms and oval evergreen foliage. It grows six or eight feet tall, and will tolerate a range of conditions including semi-shade, though it is averse to drought. Propogate from seed or better, from cuttings. Currently, I am trying a couple out as house-plants, but I expect to give them the occasional outdoor reprieve.

Most hybrids, like the species, bear single tubular blooms at the branch tips and leaf axils. “ Maid of Orleans” has widely flared lobes, and “Belle of India” has significantly longer petals. “Grand Duke of Tuscany” has double flowers which give the blooms a rose or gardenia-like appearance. There is however, some loss of scent.

And scent is the thing. Jasminum sambac will not only fill your evening garden with delicious aromas, it will pervade your house. The essential oil from the flowers, made from soaking the buds on cotton sheets with olive oil, provides one of the classic fragrances in soaps and perfumes. And the flowers, blended with green tea leaves, give us jasmine tea. What a star!

Jasminum officinale is not quite in the same league. In fact its popular name is common jasmine, a reference, I suspect, to the fact that it is much more widely cultivated than J. sambac . One of two jasmine varieties, I was able to grow in London, it is a sprawling and somewhat twining deciduous shrub which can grow to a considerable size. The flowers are often pink-tinged and the leaves are pinnate, consisting of a number of slender leaflets. But the jasmine smell is unmistakably present and in temperate climes can provide fragrance through the summer months. .