Jasminum grandiflorum L.

Wild in Salt Range and Rawalpindi Hills (according to Parker), Karot forest. Frequently cultivated. The leaves and flowers have long been known in indigenous medicine; the leaves are adstringent in action. The whole plant is considered to be anthelmintic and diuretic. The perfume from the flowers is highly priced. National Flower of Pakistan.

Cultivated in warm and tropical countries for its fragrant flowers.

Shrub large, sometimes scandent; branches striate, glabrous, green. Leaves opposite, 5-12 cm long, petiolate, petiole and midrib margined; leaflets (5-) 7-11, glabrous, dark green, the upper pair with a broad flat base, often confluent with the terminal leaflet; the terminal hardly larger, ovate lanceolate, acuminate. Flowers fragrant, in lax axillary or terminal cymes, the stalks of later flowers exceeding the first or central ones; pedicels up to 3 cm long. Bracts linear, 5 mm long. Calyx teeth 5, linear, 7-12 mm long. Corolla white, sometimes tinged with red outside, tube c. 2 cm long, lobes 5, oblong, shorter than the tube, involute at the margins.

Shrubs scandent, 2-4 m. Branchlets terete, angular or grooved. Leaves opposite, pinnatipartite or compound with 5-9 leaflets; petiole 0.5-4 cm; leaflet blade ovate or narrowly so (terminal one usually narrowly rhomboid), 0.7-3.8 × 0.5-1.5 cm, base cuneate or blunt, apex acute, acuminate, or blunt, sometimes mucronate. Cymes terminal or axillary, 2-9-flowered; bracts linear, 2-3 mm. Pedicel 0.5-2.5 cm, middle pedicel of cymes conspicuously shorter. Calyx glabrous; lobes subulate-linear, (3-)5-10 mm. Corolla white, salverform; tube 1.3-2.5 cm; lobes often 5, oblong, 1.3-2.2 cm. Fruit not seen. Fl. Aug-Oct. 2n = 26*.

Distribution: subtropical NW. Himalaya, 500-1500 m.

Fl. Per.: Warm season, sometimes the whole year.

Widely grown in Sichuan, Yunnan [native of Arabia]

Jasminum officinale Linnaeus var. grandiflorum (Linnaeus) Stokes; J. officinale f. grandiflorum (Linnaeus) Kobuski.