Jasmines

April 28th, 2008

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Order: Lamiales

Family: Oleaceae

Genus: Jasminum

Habitat: The COMMON WHITE JASMINE (Jasminum officinale), one of the best known and most highly esteemed of British hardy ligneous climbers, is a native of Northern India and Persia, introduced about the middle of the sixteenth century. In the centre and south of Europe it is thoroughly acclimatized.

Although it grows to the height of 12 and sometimes 20 feet, its stem is feeble and requires support. Its leaves are opposite, pinnate and dark green, the leaflets are in three pairs, with an odd one and are pointed, the terminal one larger with a tapering point. The fragrant flowers bloom from June to October; and as they are found chiefly on the young shoots, the plant should only be pruned in the autumn.

Varieties with golden and silver-edged leaves and one with double flowers are known.

Description:
Their leaves are mostly ternate or pinnate; the flowers, usually white oryellow, with a tubular, five- or eight-cleft calyx, a cylindrical corolla-tube, with a spreading limb, two stamens enclosed in the corolla-tube and a two-celled ovary.

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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.

Cultivation and uses:
Jasmine is widely cultivated for their flowers, enjoyed in the garden, as house plants, and as cut flowers. The flowers are worn by women in their hair in southern and southeast Asia. Some claim that the daily consumption of Jasmine tea is effective in preventing certain cancers[citation needed]. Many species also yield an absolute which is used in the production of perfumes and incense.
Jasmine tisane is consumed in China, where it is called Jasmine flower tea (????; pinyin: mò lì hua chá). Jasminum sambac flowers are also used to make tea, which often has a base of green tea, but sometimes an Oolong base is used. The delicate Jasmine flower opens only at night and is plucked in the morning when the tiny petals are tightly closed. They are then stored in a cool place until night. Between six and eight in the evening, as the temperature cools, the petals begin to open. Flowers and tea are “mated” in machines that control temperature and humidity. It takes four hours or so for the tea to absorb the fragrance and flavour of the Jasmine blossoms, and for the highest grades, this process may be repeated as many as seven times. Because the tea has absorbed moisture from the flowers, it must be refired to prevent spoilage. The spent flowers may or may not be removed from the final product, as the flowers are completely dry and contain no aroma. Giant fans are used to blow away and remove the petals from the denser tea leaves. If present, they simply add visual appeal and are no indication of the quality of the tea.

Constituents: The essential oil of J. grandiflorum contains methyl anthranilate, indol, benzyl alcohol, benzyl acetate, and the terpenes linalol and linalyl acetate.

As essential oil is distilled from Jasmine in Tunis and Algeria, but its high price prevents its being used to any extent.

The East Indian oil of Jasmine is a compound, largely contaminated with sandalwood-oil.

Syrup of Jasmine is made by placing in a jar alternate layers of the flowers and sugar, covering the whole with wet doths and standing it in a cool place. The perfume is absorbed by the sugar, which is converted into a very palatable syrup.

The ZAMBAK, or ARABIAN JASMINE (J. Sambac), is an evergreen white-flowered climber, 6 or 8 feet high, introduced into Britain in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Two varieties introduced somewhat later are respectively three-leaved and double-flowered, and these, as well as that with normal flowers, bloom throughout the greater part of the year.

The Hindus string the flowers together as neck garlands for honoured guests. The flowers of one of the double varieties are held sacred to Vishnu and are used as votive offerings in Hindu religious ceremonies.

At Ghazipur, a town on the Ganges, Jasmine, there called Chameli, is used mainly for making perfumed hair oils by a process of enfleurage. The odour is absorbed in sesame seeds. The seeds are prepared by washing and rubbing, and when decorticated are dried. The prepared seeds and flowers are placed in alternate layers and allowed to remain for twelve to fourteen hours. The seeds are then separated from the flowers and repeatedly treated in the same way with fresh flowers. The spent flowers are used over and over again with fresh till seeds, these latter giving oil of an inferior quality. The oil obtained from seeds treated with fresh flowers only is the best. The perfumed seeds are pressed in an ordinary wooden country press borne by bullocks. The method is crude, wasteful, tedious and dirty. Some Otto of Jasmine is also made at Ghazipur.

In Borneo it is the custom among the women to roll up Jasmine blossoms in their well-oiled hair at night.

Medicinal Action and Uses:
The roots of several species of Jasminum have had various ill-defined uses in medicine - that of J. officinale is mentioned by Millspaugh (American Medicinal Plants) as ‘a proven plant’ in the homoeopathic sense, though he adds: ‘the authority for the use of which I am unable to determine.’
The Dispensatory of the U.S.A. cites the case of a child, in 1861, being poisoned by the fruit of Jasmin,
‘probably that of the common White species, J. officinale, the symptoms being coma, widely dilated pupil, snoring respiration, with cold, pale surface; slow, feeble pulse, followed by violent convulsions, with rigidity of muscle about head and throat.’
A palatable syrup can be prepared from the flowers. A preparation of the flowers has been employed medicinally. Green, in his Universal Herbal (1832), recommends:
‘as an excellent medicine in coughs, hoarsenesses and other disorders of the breast, an infusion of five or six ounces of them picked clean from the leaves, in a quart of boiling water, being strained off and boiled in a syrup, with the addition of a sufficient quantity of honey.’
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.

An oil obtained by boiling the leaves of this EasternJasmine is used to anoint the head for complaints of the eye, and an oil obtained from the roots is used medicinally to arrest the secretion of milk.

In China JASMINUM PANICULATUM is cultivated. It is an erect shrub, valued for its flowers and known as Sien-hing-hwa, the flowers being used with those of J. Sambac, Sambac-mo-le-hwa, in the proportion of 10 lb. of the former to 30 lb. of the latter for scenting tea, 40 lb. of the mixture being required for 100 lb. of tea.

In Catalonia and in Turkey, the wood of the Jasmine is made into long, slender pipestems.

JASMINUM ANGUSTIFOLIUM, an Indian species, found in the Coromandel forest and introduced into Britain during the present century, is a beautiful evergreen climber, 10 to 12 feet high, its leaves of a bright shining green, its large, terminal flowers, white with a faint tinge of red, fragrant and in bloom throughout the year. Its bitter root, ground and mixed with the powdered root of Acorus calamus, the Sweet Sedge, is in India considered a valuable external application for ringworm.

In Cochin-China, a decoction of the leaves and branches of JASMINUM NERVOSUM is taken as a blood-purifier. The very bitter leaves of JASMINUM FLORIBUNDUM (called in Abyssinia, Habbez-zelim), mixed with kousso, is considered a powerful anthelmintic, especially for tapeworm; the leaves and branches are added to some fermented liquors to increase their intoxicating quality.

The distinguishing characters of the TRUE YELLOW JASMINE (J. odoratissimum), a native of the Canary Islands and Madeira, consist principally in the alternate, obtuse, ternate leaves, the three-flowered terminal peduncles and the five-cleft yellow corolla, with obtuse segments. The flowers have the advantage, when dry, of retaining their natural perfume, which is suggestive of a mixture of Jasmine, jonquil and orange-blossom.

Among other hardy species commonly cultivated in gardens are the low ITALIAN YELLOW-FLOWERED JASMINE (J. humile), an East Indian species, introduced into the south of Europe and now found wild there an erect shrub, 3 or 4 feet high, with angular branches alternate and mostly ternate leaves, blossoming from June to September; JASMINUM FRUTICANS (Linn.) (J. frutescens, Gueldermeister), a native of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, a hardy, evergreen shrub, 10 to 12 feet high, with weak, slender stems, requiring support and bearing yellow, odourless flowers from spring to autumn, and JASMINUM NUDIFLORUM (Roth.) (J. pubescens, Willd.), of China, which bears its bright yellow flowers in winter before the leaves appear. It thrives in almost any situation and grows rapidly. The important medicinal plant known in America as the ‘Carolina Jasmin’ (Gelsemium nitidum) is not a true Jasmine, though often called ‘Yellow Jasmine.’ A more correct name for it is ‘False Jasmine.’

The rhizome of J. fruticans is sometimes collected in the place of Gelsemium, but may be distinguished by the cells of the pith, which are thin-walled and full of starch, while those of Gelsemium are thick-walled and empty. See GELSEMIUM.

From the leaves of J. fruticans, the glucoside Jasminin has been isolated, and from the shoots of J. nudiflorum, the glucoside, Jasminiflorin.

Other plants called ‘Jasmine,’ but not related to it, are:
(i) The so-called American Jasmine (Quamoclit coccinea).
(ii) The Red Jasmine (Plumiera rubra), a shrubby tree, native to Central America, with delicately-scented flowers, which have obtained for it this name. Another member of the genus, P. alba, is known as the Frangipani plant, its scent having been characterized as ‘the eternal perfume.’
(iii) The Cape Jasmine (Gardenia florida), with a strong, pleasant fragrance similar to that of Jasmine, much employed for ‘buttonholes’ and in wreaths, and in China, under the name of Pak-Semahwa, for scenting tea. Another Chinese species, G. grandiflora, is employed in dyeing the yellow robes of the mandarins. The fruit of G. campanulata, a species growing in the forests of Chittagong, is said to be used by the natives as acathartic and anthelmintic.
(iv) The Ground Jasmine (Passerina stelleri) is like the Gardenia, also a native of the Cape.
The WILD JASMINE or WHITE JASMINE OF JAMAICA (called there, ‘Jamaica Wild Coffee’), with very fragrant white flowers, is a species of Pavetta. The Pavettas are shrubs inhabiting the tropical regions. The root of P. Indica is bitter and is employed as a purgative by the Hindus, the leaves being also used medicinally and for manuring; knife handles being made from the roots.
The leaves of the Indian Night Jasmine (Nyctanthes arbortristis - N.O. Jasminaceae) are used in homoeopathic medicine to make a tincture for rheumatism, sciatica and bilious fevers.–EDITOR.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/j/jasmin06.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmine
http://www.theflowerexpert.com/content/giftflowers/flowersandfragrances/jasmine