Orange Jasmine

The ‘china box’ is often cultivated for its fragrant flowers and red berries. It is found in Billawar and the foothills of Jammu and E. Kashmir.

Murraya paniculata var. omphalocarpa was accepted by Chang (Fl. Taiwan, ed. 2, 3: 527. 1993).

Large shrub or small tree up to 3 m tall. Branches sparsely pubescent, with an ash coloured bark. Leaves imparipinnate; leaflets glabrous, 5-7, 15-50 x 10-22 mm, elliptic, oblique; apex drawn out, obtuse, sometimes notched; margin undulate. Flowers fragrant, white, in 3-flowered cymes. Sepals c. 3 mm, pubescent, lobes triangular, obtuse apically. Petals 12-15 mm, oblong to lanceolate, sparsely pubescent, glandular. Ovary 2(-5)-locular, elongate; stigma lobed. Berry ovoid, 7-13 x 6-8 mm, beaked at the top, deep orange to red when ripe.

Shrubs or trees, 1.8-12 m tall. Older branchlets grayish white to pale yellowish gray. Leaves 2-5-foliolate; petiolules less than 1 cm; leaflet blades mostly suborbicular to ovate to elliptic, 2-9 × 1.5-6 cm, margin entire or crenulate, apex rounded to acuminate. Inflorescences terminal or terminal and axillary. Flowers 5-merous, fragrant. Sepals ovate to lanceolate, to 2 mm, persistent in fruit. Petals white, narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, to 2 cm. Stamens 10. Fruit orange to vermilion, narrowly ellipsoid or rarely ovoid, 1-2 × 0.5-1.4 cm. Seeds villous. Fl. Apr-Oct, fr. Apr-Feb. 2n = 18.

Himalaya (Kashmir to Nepal), India, Ceylon, Burma, Indo-China, China, Malaysia.

Distribution: Sub-himalayan tracts of India-Pakistan, China, and the Pacific Islands.

Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, S Guizhou, Hainan, S Hunan, Taiwan, Yunnan [Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan (Ryukyu Islands), Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia, SW Pacific islands].

400-1050 m

Fl. Per.: March-Sept.

Thickets, montane forests; near sea level to 1300 m.

Chalcas paniculata Linnaeus, Mant. Pl. 1: 68. 1767; Murraya omphalocarpa Hayata; M. paniculata var. omphalocarpa (Hayata) Tanaka.