THE JASMINES 
13 
THE JASMINES (Jasminum). 
Though containing few hardy kinds, 
the Jasmines have long held front rank 
in the gardens of the world. The 120 
or more species are widely spread over 
the eastern hemisphere, British India 
claiming the largest share with 40 to 
50 kinds, while others are scattered 
more sparingly through the Malay 
States to China and Japan, and thence 
by way of the East Indies to Australia 
and the southern seas. To the west 
they are fewer, and confined to a few 
kinds in Africa and islands of the Indian 
Ocean, with two in Europe, two in the 
islands of the Atlantic, and only two in 
the whole of the American continent — 
y. lanceolatum in Peru, and y. Bahiense 
in Brazil. The greater part are hothouse 
climbers, though some dozen or more 
kinds may be grown in the open air 
in the southern parts of our islands, 
though several of these are only safe 
upon walls. They are 
summer - leafing, sub- 
evergreen, or evergreen 
in 
fob 
with white or 
lage, 
yellow flowers only va- 
ried in two or three 
cases by faint flushing 
of the outer petals, and " 
are often richly fragrant. 
This sweetness has been 
celebrated from the ear- 
liest times, coming to us 
and Oriental fable which have left their 
traces in the Arab name of Jessamine. 
By a choice of hardy and tender kinds, 
it is possible to gather jasmine flowers 
the whole year through, and even with 
the hardy plants alone the circle of the 
seasons is not far from complete at 
times when the Winter Jasmine opens 
its first flowers in November, when the 
last white stars of the common Jasmine 
have hardly dropped before the autumn 
gales. A slight defect of the Jasmine 
is its fleeting flowers, hardly atoned for 
by their freedom when it means that, 
of many kinds, the flowers must be 
gummed separately when used for de- 
coration. The double flowers of the 
Arabian Jasmine are the most lasting, 
and pretty used with Parma Violets or 
bright Bouvardia sprays for buttonholes, 
but their fragrance is too strong for 
some tastes. 
No garden can be complete 
Uses. . 1 ° , -r . . ^ 
without the Jasmme m some 
of its forms, for no other flower yields 
such perfume in summer, while y, 
iiudiflorum stands alone for wintry 
beauty. Though mostly seen 
upon walls (where one plant has 
been known to cover as much 
as 60 feet), there 
are many other 
uses to which it 
mid legend 
pots or baskets 
tufts in the 
as 
may be put, either in 
for the conservatory; 
open border, which flower later than on 
walls ; upon rocks or roots, where it 
is prettiest with brightly fruited Coto- 
neasters or Cratcsgus Pyracantha y as 
a graceful, drooping edge to banks or 
