; J A S 
‘The feventh fort,, was brought from the Cape of Good 
Hope, by Captain Hutchinfon of the Godolphin, who 
difcovered it growing naturally, a few miles up the 
land from the fea, being drawn to it by the great 
fraorancy of its flowers, which he fmelt at iome 
diftance from the plant, which was then in full flower , 
and after having viewed the plant, and remarked the 
place of its growth, he returned thither the following 
day with proper help, and a tub to put it in, and 
caufed it to be carefully taken up, and planted in the 
tub with fome of the earth on the fpot, and con- 
veyed on board his fhip, where it continued flowering 
(rreat part of the voyage to England, where it arrived 
in good health, and has for fome years continued 
flowering:, in the curious garden of Richard Warner, 
Efq* at Woodford in Effex, who was fo obliging as 
to favour me with branches of this curious plant in 
flower, to embellifh one of the numbers of my figures 
of plants, where it is reprefented in the 180th plate. 
This plant feems not to have been known to any of 
the botamfts, for I have not met with any figure or 
defcription of it in any of the books ; there is one 
fort which is figured in the Malabar garden, and alfo 
in Burman’s plants of Ceylon, which approaches near 
this-, it is titled Nandi ervatum major. Hort. Mai. 
But it differs from this, in having longer and narrower 
leaves ; the tube of the flower is larger, and the feg- 
ments do not fpread fo much as this ; the flowers alfo 
of the Cape Jafmine fade to a buff colour before they 
decay, therefore there is no doubt of its being a dif- 
ferent fpecies from that of Dr. Burman ; but it is 
furprizing that this plant fhould be unknown to the 
people at the Cape of Good Hope, for there was not 
one plant of it in their curious garden, nor could the 
captain fee any other plant of it but that which he 
brought away. 
The item of this plant is large and woody, fending 
out many branches, which are firft green, but af- 
terward the bark becomes gray and fmooth ; the 
branches come out by pairs oppofite, and have fhort 
joints; the leaves are alfo fet oppofite, clofe to 
the branches; they are five inches long, and two 
inches and a half broad in the middle, leffening to 
both ends, terminating in a point ; they are of a lu- 
cid green, having feveral tranfverfe veins from the 
midrib to the borders; they are entire, and of a 
thick confiftence. The flowers are produced at the 
end of the branches, fitting clofe to the leaves ; they 
have a tubulous empalement, with five comers or 
angles, cut deep at the brim, into five long narrow 
fegments, ending in acute points : the flower hath 
but one petal, for although it is cut into many deep 
fegments at the top, yet thefe are all joined in one 
tube below ; fome of thefe flowers are much more 
double than others, having three or four orders of 
petals ; thefe which have fo many, have only a bifid 
ftigma, but thofe which are lefs double have trifid 
ftigmas. All thofe flowers which I have examined 
have but one or two ftamina, which may be occafi- 
oned by the fulnefs of the flowers ; as is often ob- 
ferved in many kinds of plants, whofe flowers have 
a greater number of petals than ufual, many of 
which want both parts of generation, and fome of 
them have no male parts. This flower, when fully 
blown, is as large as a middling Rofe, and fome of 
them are as double as the Damafk Rofe ; they have 
a very agreeable odour ; on the firft approach it is 
fomething like that of the Orange flower, but when 
more cloiely fmelt to, has the odour of the common 
double white •Narciffus. The feafon of this plant 
flowering in England, is in July and Auguft, but in 
its native country it is fuppofed to flower great part 
of the year ; for Captain Hutchinfon, who brought 
the plant over, faid there was a fucceffion of flowers 
on it, till the fhip arrived in a cold climate, which 
put a flop to its growth. 
Dr. Linnaeus has been induced from what has been 
printed in the TranfaCtions of the Royal Society, 
to alter the title of this plant to Gardenia ; but as the 
defcription of the plant with its characters as there 
J A T 
printed, was taken from a double flower by fome ha fty 
people, who fhould have remembred what Linrialus 
has written to caution perfons againft regarding the 
double flowers of all kinds, in ranging them in their 
claffes and genera, which if they had adhered to, they 
would not have made this miftake ; for I have fince 
raffed feveral of the plants from feeds, fome of which 
have produced flowers which were Angle, having all 
the marks of the double, the flowers altering to a 
buff colour before they faded, and all thefe flowers 
had each but three ftamina and a trifid ftigma; 
whereas in the characters fet down by Linnaeus, there 
is no ftamina, but five linear anthers, by which it is 
plain from the increafe of the number of petals (or 
rather their fegments) has occafioned an alteration in 
the parts of generation ; which is alfo very confpicuous 
in the double flowers of Dianthus, where iome flow- 
ers have but two or three ftamina, when the fame 
fpecies with Angle flowers have ufually ten. Linnaeus 
alfo fuppofes the capfule of the feed to have two cells 
full of fmall feeds ; but the perfons who led him into 
this miftake, have fince fuppofed the figure given by 
Dr. Plukenet in his 448th plate, under the title 
of Um-ky, to be the fruit of this plant ; whereas 
this has three cells filled with angular fweet-fcented 
feeds, as the fpecimens I have of that demonftrate, 
by which it is certain they are the fruit of a different 
plant; for the feeds which I fowed of this jafmine, 
were a berry compofed of two feeds like the other 
Jafmines; therefore I have continued it under the 
fame genus, with an addition to the title of its having 
three ftamina. 
This plant is eafily propagated by cuttings during 
the fummer feafon ; the cuttings fhould be planted in 
pots, and plunged into a moderate hot-bed, covering 
them clofe with either bell or hand-glaffes to exclude 
the external air, being careful to fcreen them from 
fun in the day time ; when they have taken root they 
fhould be carefully parted, and put each into a fe- 
parate fmall pot, plunging them again into the hot- 
bed, and fhading them until they have taken new 
root, after which they fhould be gradually inured to 
the open air. 
Though the cuttings of this plant take root freely, 
and make ftrong fhoots a year or two after, yet in 
three or four years they are very apt to flint in their 
growth, their leaves turning pale and fickly, and fre- 
quently die foon after ; this has happened every where 
within my knowledge, although the plants have been 
kept in various degrees of heat in winter ; and in 
fummer when they have been differently managed, 
they have frequently failed. I have alfo been in- 
formed by a gentleman who lived fome years in India, 
where he had the plants in his garden, they fre- 
quently went off in the fame manner. This has 
greatly leffened the value of the plants in England. 
JASMINUM ARABICUM. See Coffee. 
JASMINUM ILICIS FOLIO. See Lan- 
TANA. 
JASMINE, the Arabian. See Nyctanthes. 
JASMINE, the Perfian. See Syringa. 
JATROPHA. Lin. Gen. Plant. 961. Manihot. 
Tourn. Inft. R. H. 958. tab. 438. Caffada, or Caf- 
fava ; in French Cajfave . 
The Characters are. 
It hath male and female flowers in the fame plant ; the 
male flowers have a fcarce vifible empalement ; they are 
falver-Jhaped , of one petal , with a fhort tube , whofe brim 
is cut into five roundifh fegments which fpread open ; they 
have ten awl-jhaped ftamina, five being alternately floorter 
than the other , and are joined clofe together, ftanding ere 51 
in the center of the flower, terminated by roundifh loofe 
fummits. 'The female flowers which are fituated in the 
fame umbel have no empalement , but have five petals fpread 
open like a Rofe. In the center is a roundifh germen with 
three deep furrows, fupporting three ftyles , crowned by fmgle 
ftigmas. The germen afterzvard becomes a roundifh cap - 
file with three cells, each containing one feed. 
This genus of plants is ranged in the ninth feClion of 
Linnteus’s twenty-firft daft, intitled Moncecia Mo- 
3 nodelphia. 
