28 The White Jasmine. 



of a few Asiatic herbs, with compound leaves and fragrant 

 flowers. It is in the class Decandria ; order Monogynia. The 

 generic character of the Jasminum Officinale — White Jasmine, 

 is — coral salver-form, five to eight-cleft ; berry two-seeded, each 

 seed solitary and losing its external coat, which dries and falls 

 off. The specific character is — leaves ranged in opposite rows 

 and taper form ; buds almost upright. This climber thrives well 

 in a common garden soil, and bears its white flowers from June 

 to October. This plant, when first introduced into France, was 

 very much admired for the delicate lustre of its star-like flowers; 

 they at first took considerable care of it, but at last left it mostly 

 to itself, when they found it would do better without their aid. Its 

 flexible branches twine around our window sills, and cause each 

 gale that sweeps by to almost intoxicate with its delicious odors. 

 It became neglected, and at the end of the seventeenth century 

 there was but one place in Europe where it could be obtained, 

 and that was in the garden of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, at 

 Pisa. Jealous that any one should possess this charming plant 

 but himself, he would not allow his gardener to give away 

 even a flower on any consideration, which order was disobeyed 

 by the man presenting his betrothed with a sprig in a birth-day 

 boquet. She had profited by the instruction her lover at times had 

 given her relative to the cultivation of plants, and observing her 

 prize with delight, as soon as he had departed, planted it, and was 

 so successful in its culture that she amassed a small fortune by 

 the sale of the cuttings ; enough to render them independent 

 enough to marry. From this circumstance arose the proverb in 

 that place, " that she who is worthy to wear a nosegay of Jas- 

 mine is as good as a fortune to her husband." This plant, of 

 course, is only valuable as an odor ; it was formerly celebrated 

 in Italy, in some parts of which even at the present day the oil is 

 considered a specific for rheumatic pains and the cure of paralytic 

 limbs. This oil is obtained by alternating layers of the flowers 

 with cotton saturated with the oil of ben or any other scentless fix- 

 ed oil, and exposing the whole in a covered vessel to the rays of 

 the sun ; the flowers are renewed until the oil becomes saturated 

 with their odor, and it is then separated from the cotton by pressure; 

 there is no other way of eliminating the odor, as the scent is lost 

 entirely by distillation. The seeds of the Jasmine do not ripen 

 in our climate, but the plant is increased by layering down the 



