1 28 GARDEN FLOWERS. 



Another sweetly fragrant flower is the com- 

 mon white jessamine, (Jasminum offioinale.) It 

 is a very old garden flower, and Gerarde says, 

 in 1597, that it was in common use for covering 

 arbours. The white flowers are often used for 

 making a fragrant oil. Cowper well describes it : 



" The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, 

 The deep dark green of whose unvarni;>iied leaf 

 Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more 

 The bright profusion of her scattered stars." 



A few, besides the common species, bear the 

 open air, but many jessamines reqiure the hot- 

 house. The Italian yellow jessamine (Jasmi- 

 num himiile,) is a border flower, and the curled 

 yellow jessamine, a native of Nepaul, grows 

 well against walls. The sweet night-blowing 

 Arabian jessamine is most fragrant during 

 night. Its powerful fragrance renders it a fa- 

 vourite flower, both in the East and West 

 Indies. Loudon remarks of this plant, that it 

 grew in the Hampton Coui't garden at the close 

 of the seventeenth century, but being lost there, 

 it was known in Europe only in the garden of 

 the Grand Duke of Tuscany, at Pisa, where the 

 plant was placed under guard, that no cuttings 

 might be stolen. 



But no species of the jasmine tribe is more 

 interesting than that called the tree of mourn- 

 ing, {Nyctanthus arhor tristis,) which, however, 

 requires to be grown in a stove in this country. 

 It is an Indian tree, and the Hindoo women 

 use its flowers to decorate their hair. It is 

 dehciously fragrant, the blossoms having the 

 scent of fresh honey, but the brightness of day 



