CHAP. LXXVI. JASMINA CEE. JASMI'NUM. 1251 
been cultivated in the gardens of convents from time 
immemorial; and it is naturalised in the southern 
valleys of Switzerland, particularly in the neighbour- 
hood of Aigle. It was so common in British gardens 
in the time of Gerard, that “ Master Lyte” thought 
it was indigenous. It is to be found in gardens, and 
against houses, in every part of Europe, from the 
Mediterranean, as far north as Warsaw; where, how- 
ever, it requires the green-house during winter. It 
flowers, more especially in moist seasons, or when 
supplied with water, from the end of May till October ; 
but, like many other plants prolific in side-suckers, it 
very seldom produces fruit, even in the south of France 
and Spain. This year, 1836, there are a few fruit, with perfect seeds, on our 
plant, at Bayswater. 
Properties and Uses. The flowers are highly odoriferous; and, though 
they do not yield an oil, yet they are much employed, in France and Italy, to 
communicate their odour both to oils and spirits ; and, sometimes, also to 
powdered sugar. ‘This is effected in the following manner :— Small flasks 
of cotton are moistened with the oil of ben (an oil drawn from the seeds of 
Moringa pterygospérma Dec., the horseradish tree, anative of the East 
Indies), or with any other oil not liable to become rancid. Layers of these 
pieces of cotton are placed between layers of flowers for twenty-four hours, 
when the cotton is removéd; and the oil, being separated from it by expres- 
sion, is found to be highly aromatic. This oil, put into pure spirit, gives 
out its odour to it; and the oil being separated, the spirit remains, having im- 
bibed the odour of the jasmine. Powdered sugar, in layers, placed between 
layers of blossoms, becomes impregnated with the odour in the same manner 
as the oiled cotton; and the sugar may be afterwards used to flavour various 
articles, either in a dry state, or in the form of syrup. In every case, the 
article impregnated with the flavour of the jasmine requires to be kept in 
vessels closely stopped ; because the odour soon evaporates by exposure to 
the air. These operations may be performed with all the odoriferous species 
of jasmine; and, indeed, with all odoriferous flowers whatever. The great 
use of the jasmine, in British gardens, is as a shrub for covering walls, 
arbours, &c.; for which purpose it may be truly said to be invaluable. It is 
always green, by its leaves in summer, and by the colour of its young 
wood in winter; and it is an abundant flowerer. Its flowers are produced 
during the greater part of summer; they are of an elegant shape, a pure 
white, and are highly odoriferous. Evelyn, alluding to its flowers, says 
that, if they were as much employed in England as in Italy and France, our 
gardeners might make money enough of them. “ One sorry tree in Paris,” 
he adds, “ has been worth, to a poor woman, near a pistole a year.” In the 
present day, the plant is still a great favourite with the French. The 
Parisian gardeners train the plants to a single stem in pots and boxes, and 
expose them all the year in the flower-markets, where they find customers 
among all ranks. Such is the rapid growth of this plant, that, when once 
firmly established im good soil, it will make shoots from 10 ft. to 20 ft. long 
in one season. These shoots, when of 2 years’ or 3 years’ growth, are used 
in Greece and Turkey as tubes to tobacco-pipes ; and they may be seen, in 
Constantinople, 8 ft. or 10 ft. long, twisted in various ways. The plant will 
endure the smoke of London almost as well as the ivy and the aucuba, but it 
does not blossom so freely among coal smoke as in a purer air. In Paris, it may 
be found beautifully in flower in back courts, and on the balconies, sills, or 
outsides of windows, in the most confined parts of the town. A very strik- 
ing application of this shrub is, to train it up a strong cast-iron rod 20 ft. 
high, with an umbrella head 8 ft. or 10 ft. in diameter; and, after the head 
has been covered with shoots, to allow them to droop down on every side to 
the ground. This is, also, a very pleasing mode of covering the roofs of 
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