Jasmine

Jasmine flower and the essential oil extracted from the flower are being used extensively in cosmetics and perfumery, and as a calmative (relaxing properties, sedative) and aphrodisiac (intensifies sexual desire).

Jasmine Flower Image Jasmine is a very popular flower around the world, especially in tropics because of its unique fragrance. The Jasmine is native to tropical and warm temperate regions of the old world.

Jasmine flowers are white in most species, with some species being yellow flowered. Jasmine is believed to have originated in the Himalayas in western China.

Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Lamiales
Family: Oleaceae
Genus: Jasminum

Unlike most genera in the Oleceae family, which have four corolla lobes petals, Jasmines often have five or six lobes. Jasmines are often strongly and sweetly scented. Jasmine is widely cultivated for its shining leaves and beautiful clusters of fragrant flowers.

Flowering in Jasmines takes place in summer or spring, usally six months after planting. The Jasmine flower releases its fragrance at night after the sun has set and especially when the moon is waxing towards fullness. Jasmine flower buds are more fragrant than the flowers.

There exists a true Jasmine and a false Jasmine, and the two are commonly mistaken for each other because of the fragrance the plants release. The true Jsmine belongs to the family Oleaceae, is primarily a bushy shrub or climbing vine, and is non-poisonous.

True Jasmine has oval, shiny leaves and tubular, waxy-white flowers. The false Jasmine, on the other hand, is in a completely different genus, Gelsemium, and family, Loganiaceae, is considered too poisonous for human consumption.

Facts About Jasmine

Jasmine shrubs reache to a height of 10-15 feet, growing approximately 12-24 inches per year.
Jasmine leaves are either evergreen or deciduous.
A Jasmine leaf is arranged in opposite in most species, leaf shape is simple, trifoliate or pinnate with 5-9 leaflets, each up to two and half inches long.
The Jasmine stems are slender, trailing, green, glaborous, angled, almost 4-sided.
Most of the Jasmine species bear white flowers, which are about 1 inch in size.
Jasmine oil, which is a very popular fragrant oil, contains benzyl acetate, terpinol, jasmone, benzyl benzoate, linalool, several alcohols, and other compounds.
The variety Jasminium sambac, is a clustered flower of a equally strong scent known in Hawaii as the Pikake.
Two types of Jasmine are used for oil production - Jasminum grandiflorum and Jasminum officinale.
The nectar of the fragrant flowers of Carolina Jasmine, Gelsemium sempervirens, is poisonous, although its dried roots are used in medicinal preparations as a sedative.
Jasmine flower oil, extracted from the two species Jasminum Officinale and Grandiflorum, is used in high-grade perfumes and cosmetics, such as creams, oils, soaps, and shampoos.

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Some Popular Varieties in Jasmine

Common Jasmine, or poet's Jasmine - Jasmine officinale, is native to Iran, which produces fragrant white flowers that are the source of attar of Jasmine used in perfumery.
Winter Jasmine - Jasmine nudiflorum, a Chinese species with solitary yellow flowers, is used as a cover plant on hillsides.
Arabian Jasmine - Jasmine sambac, are used to make jasmine tea.
South African Jasmine - Jasmine angulare: an evergreen vine, which is only hardy in the coastal areas. Jasmine blooms in the summer, bearing unscented white flowers in groups of three.
Spanish Jasmine - Jasmine grandiflorum: is a semi-evergreen to deciduous vine with fragrant, white flowers, which are 1 inch in diameter.