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True Jasmines all belong to the botanical genus Jasminum. However in every corner of the world and even where jasmine species are not found and even where they are there are other plants which are known to have the common name Jasmine or Jessmine and a list appears at the end of this section of these plants.
As attractive and sweetly scented as these plants are they are unrelated and are bound only by common names usually due to their powerful scent some names that spring to mind as masquerading as Jasmines are Cestrum nocturnum and Gelsemium sempervirens, both with strong scent and the former of these two has remarkable power but, alas neither are true Jasmines. |
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Jasminum species can be found in Africa (both tropical and south and north Africa), Arabia, Australasia, Brazil and Central and South America, China, Europe, India ( all areas including the Himalayas), Burma right through SE Asia including Thailand, Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam then Indonesia. Some very specific locations give rise to certain species such as the Island of Madeira and New Caledonia and Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island and Papua New Guinea. Distribution is as varied as one can imagine and the genus has representatives that are alpine hardy and grow in the coldest and most inhospitable of locations and also true tropical species from the rain forests.
Current estimates believe that there are some 200- 300 species which are in the main found in tropical areas of the world. Most but by no means all are climbers or scandent shrubs in their wild habitat but can be adapted to be grown in containers as smaller more manageable subjects.
Although the vast majority are shrubby and attempt to climb to varying degrees, the genus (botanic term for grouping /see classification/glossary) also even includes some small trees. Many species need frost protection and have been grown under glass/protection in Europe for many hundreds of years.
Many originating from warmer climes are surprisingly hardier than you would expect, but more of that later. A very few have no scent.
This really makes these species rather dull for purposes of ornamental horticulture especially when the flower is white. As far as I am concerned as a nurseryman and gardener, nothing is less exciting than a white flower with no scent unless it has staggering proportions or its structure is attractive in its own right.
Every time I see such a white flower I find my big nose being drawn towards it with great anticipation and then recoil with a dull “oh…” It seems a cruel trick for nature to play on a flower.
There are only a few Jasminum species without scent that are white and Jasminum rex is one that redeems itself partly because it is the largest flower of all Jasminum species.
Jasminum pubescens and Jasminum kedherense are two others which have their own characters of which we will discuss each later. There are also a small proportion of species which are found in various shades of yellow, again some with and some without scent and also some with pink flowers or white with pink hues.
The information that follows is based on my experience growing Jasminum in the UK and Europe but for the sake of our web-visiting friends from the United States we have also included a comparison chart based on USDA zones.( see ‘scent table’)
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There is always a dilemma when describing something as personal and abstract as taste or smells. How ‘amazing’ is one compared to another? How can something smell even more ‘fabulous’ than the one you have just described as ‘out of this world’ and ‘one of the most amazing’ scents of all?
It is very easy to get carried away so we have used more measured language and wherever possible adopted a sober approach to this problem.
The problem is one of balance and we hope that you will assist us with your interpretations of Jasmine scents. We have talked to professional essential oil manufacturers in Asia who use scales and tables and words similar to those used in wine and whisky and indeed tea and coffee industry.
We are after all only a professional nursery with a passion for collecting and supplying Jasminum plants and have decided to stick with everyday language. Remembering that scent is subjective and all scents are interpreted individually.
There are a few customers who have contacted us and told us that the scent from ‘such and such’ a plant was overpowering & that they had to get rid of the plant altogether! It seemed perfectly inoffensive and even enjoyable to me but everyone interprets scent with some degree of difference.
One thing is sure and that is with a group of plants such as Jasmines where the main attraction is their famous strong scent there will be some people for who the scent is too strong and unbearable.
I am fortunately not counted among them and am able to enjoy this remarkable family of plants.
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Few plants are as immortalised in literature and culture or as symbolic and evocative as the Jasmine. Along with the Tulip, Lily and others they play an important role in the history of art and culture of the world and are found in the history of many cultures.
For oil production in the East the frost tender Arabian Jasmine or Jasminum sambac has long been the most useful of all species. In Europe the almost /borderline hardy Jasminum grandiflorum was long used by perfumeries as the source of the very cleanest, lightest oils with incredible power and formed an indispensable base for many centuries for the worlds greatest scents.
In the Near East (now confusingly called the Middle East), Asia and Far East the Jasmine plant has always played an important cultural and religious role.
Even now it has lost none of its potency and in my mind has a special link with the Indian sub continent where although if one were to look at the species distribution on a map it would not be the top location; The Jasmine flower/oil is used in religious offerings as garlands and as a distilled potent pure oil (diluted in a carrier oil).
Nearly every house however humble will nearly always have a clay pot with a small ‘plucked’ bush. For many reasons, of which I am sure climate (heat and humidity) and perhaps other background smells Jasmine seems totally sublime when smelt in this context.
Having imported plants back to Europe and even in the private confines of a tropical glasshouse there always seems something missing and its not just the heat and a good curry! However this is not to say that Asia and India is the sole oil producer.
The oil production in Europe was confined to the South Of France and Spain and Jasminum grandiflorum De Grasse is one of the most free flowering forms available now.
We also have a collection of a plant from the South of France that was collected as a cutting originally from a estate that produced Jasminum grandiflorum flowers to be brought and distilled for oil that was destined for the famous Chanel perfume factory. The last fields were being grubbed up and replanted with Lavender or vines in the early 1980’s and from then onwards production in Europe ceased. We believe this plant to be Jasminum grandiflorum.
In the modern cost conscious age production has now moved to Turkey and Asia and a small quantity is produced in Egypt and N Africa. Three main species are used for oil production. They are Jasminum nitidum (very rarely and only in Asia), Jasminum sambac and Jasminum grandiflorum.
The current theory is that Jasminum grandiflorum was introduced into Europe by the Moors via Spain. There is no doubt that it was cultivated for centuries in the Arab world along with Jasminum sambac which would have come in from the East.
Since this is my personal account I will tell you what doors are opened in my imagination when I smell Jasmines. It has a deal to do with their culture and traditional and current use. Having been fortunate to travel to Asia since the early 1990’s under the worthy pretext of collecting new plants for the nursery ( of which I have done a fair deal) I have visited many wonderful countries and met and been introduced to many different people.
There is no doubt that S. Asia has a strong monopoly on the current cultural uses of Jasmines. I wish in many ways that I had had the opportunity to travel the middle and near east to the same extent as I know culturally the plant and its oil are also held in high esteem there and have cultural implications.
So the monopoly is not 100% Asian but after many visits to India and the SE Asian countries I feel safe to say that this part of the earth is where this plant still now plays an important role in the religious culture. Images and memories of temple & hotel and airport visits being greeted with garlands of Jasmine sambac after an always hot and difficult and trying long journey with wife and children and endless bags in tow.
The warmth of my glowing hot skin and moisture added together with the overwhelming humidity & obviously made the oil more volatile and sensual.
There is however no doubt that there are some medicinal qualities of jasmine oil as when I last looked 816,345 pages exist via the search engine Google all waxing lyrical about the benefits of aromatherapy treatments with oil mixes all containing Jasmine oil.
For me the image will remain till my dying day of the busy main central Madras market which is specially known for its spices and herbs and plant related products and oils. The oil and scent stalls were laid out in a strip of considerable length and consisted of exotic shaped and decorated huge flasks and bottles full of either absolute, concrete or diluted oils and then on the front counter tiny bottles of special mixes for all occasions and with all combinations.
Sadly my Hindi is a bit rusty(!) so the contents of all but the ones of greater size on the higher shelves, the contents of which were enlightened to me in broken English. I purchased to small glass bottles (filled from the large flasks with precision) one of Jasminum sambac absolute and one of Jasminum grandiflorum absolute.
They sit in my office as I write now nearly 10 years old and not a jot diminished in strength. One is very light yellow and the other slightly deeper in colour and if you take the stopper out you smell very little.
The concentration is so strong it’s like letting a Genie out of the bottle and you only need a tiny unseen smudge on your forearm and then a vigorous rub to distribute the oil to raise the skin temperature and then the smell is so powerful that I rarely indulge myself.
After all a man smelling of an overpowering cloying scent is not to be advised in Europe and I regret that as much as I am in touch with my ‘feminine’ side and am a thoroughly modern male I still prefer to smell it on my young daughter!
The serious point here is that these oils are so concentrated in the absolute distilled pure form that in all cases they are always diluted in a carrier oil of neutral character such as Jojoba oil as a 5% pure jasmine oil mixed in a 95% solution of Jojoba.
It allows the oil to be used still as a pure scent or to be mixed further with other oils to add different tones and create a named scent.
The ratio of blooms to oil is astounding with about 40,000 flowers needed to produce 1 litre of pure oil. I am assured that nearly all current commercial scents available in your Chemist/Pharmacy they all contain Jasmine oil in some formulation.
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Jasminum officinale ‘grandiflorum’ or ‘affine’
Jasminum officinale ‘grandiflorum’ (is what actually should be called Jasminum officinale ‘Affine’) and Jasminum grandiflorum are two separate and different plants.
Firstly Jasminum officinale ‘Affine’ (to give it its correct name is the common garden jasmine.
Although the foliage is somewhat similar to the untrained eye the whole habit/cultivation and flower of the plant is different.
In fact to make matters worse and confuse the poor gardener even more the botanic community has decided that common garden Jasmine Jasminum officinale ‘Grandiflorum’ should now be known as J.officinale f.affine. The ‘f’ standing for ‘form’ or ‘forma’.
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Deciduous in hard winters and with twining (anti clockwise) stems and quite capable of swamping a wall, pergola, or similar support in a few years.
Flowering in N. Europe from midsummer onwards with sweetly scented small white stars with a pink blush to the outer petals of the bud but totally white when open.
It is hardy to ice age proportions and can become a rampant weed like plant. Especially when planted in moist shade or in a N European garden where there is high rainfall and insufficient strength of sunlight.
Flowering tends to be weak and over very quickly before once again the plant produces enough new growth to power one of these new Bio Mass power stations. I am familiar with it both in London and Devon. In both places it rooted along the stem anywhere the stem touched soil/leaf debris & was running along the base of a wall or pushing its way into roof spaces and garden sheds. 10 out of 10 for vigour and at one house in London it squeezed the well appointed wooden trellis of the wall within 2 years of planting.
In my opinion with so many other choices of species it seems a folly to plant such a unrewarding plant. It did not earn its keep and the ratio of flowers to growth was remarkably low. Only an annual ‘cull’ would bring the beast under control and of course reduce flowering even more. The end result was a vegetative nightmare speckled with the odd smattering of medium/poorly scented flowers for a few weeks a year.
I very much fear that most non gardeners have a mental image & visualise ‘Jasmine’ as either this plant or the Florist Jasmine; Jasminum polyanthum. So I have given Jasminum officinale ‘affine’ a bad press but this is only my experience growing it in very mild summers in moist & almost wet summer conditions and with the low light conditions that I experienced in Devon.
I expect that it may behave differently here in SW France and have already taken my spade and for better or worse ‘stuck one in’. I will keep you posted on differences of behaviour and habit as they become apparent and indeed I might even murder it one night if it behaves too much like in the UK.
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By now readers who have trodden their way to this point will know by the constant references to the winter of 2005/2006 that we lost a very large number of tropical plants due in part by having no alternative but to move the stock in early December from the UK to France.
Above all other plant genera that survived (and there are some very surprising stories) Jasminum came out head and shoulders above the rest. In particular all of the Jasminum sambac forms and varieties all recovered to some degree with losses never exceeding 30% except with J rex.
For example the two stock plants of Jasminum sambac ‘Little Bo’ mentioned above were 4 years old and in 5 litre containers.
The freeze was so severe and extended that the soil expanded with all the ice and the root ball could not be inspected as we couldn’t remove the pot.
Weeks after the freeze was over and the plants previously relocated to a frost free ( but not heated) glasshouse it could be clearly seen that roots and stems were live and many hundreds of Jasmine sambac were then (in most but not al cases) pruned right back to soil level.
At the end of April into early May a high percentage of these plants sent up new shoots from the root system. I had observed ‘suckers’ on Jasminum sambac before once or twice (especially with the non fragrant species J.pubescens) but never anything on a regular basis.
At the time of writing this the plants are 6-8” high (15-20cm) and have produced on average 2-4 stems in a cluster per pot coming deep from the base of the root/stem area and all are budding up.
For nearly 15 years I have been growing Jasminum sambac but rarely let the temperature fall below 5c/41f. Here of course I must mention that my previous location in the England UK was particularly inclement for growing plants and would not advise anyone to consider building a plant collection (garden or conservatory) either amateur or professional on the edge of Dartmoor Devon at 1000ft altitude.
The climate here in SW France has had a profound effect on many of the plants we grow and although the winter was bitterly colder than nearly every year I had in the UK the warmth, sun and light intensity has made a big difference.
The size of the flowers of Jasminum sambacs are some 20% larger already and the sun so strong that they are grown under shade material in a glasshouse.
As time proceeds I will reveal as much as I can to aid others who grow ‘tender’ Jasmines. There is definitely some latitude for those who live in big cities such as London and Paris and other microclimates and if well placed could try many species including Jasminum sambac (form 1) outside in a sheltered and protected position.
Overall losses of all J.sambac varieties at about 15-20% of which J.sambac Maid of Orleans was a clear winner retaining woody growth above ground.
As I have already mentioned the basic form 1 Jasminum sambac was to all intents and purposes hardy as long as it is protected from direct wind and damaging winter sunshine. But beware you must furnish this plant with a position that is adequate enough to promote flowering.
It will need a warm/hot sunny spot with soil that doesn’t dry out and regular feeding during the growing period. Other Jasmine sambacs fared evenly with the frost and the smaller plants suffered the biggest losses.
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