DECIDUOUS SHRUBS. 
491 
THE JASMINE. Jasminum. 
The name jasmine has been so interwoven with poetical asso¬ 
ciations that it carries with it an aroma of literature as well as of 
flowers. It is time-honored as one of the emblems of bridal 
adornment, the blossoms being used to deck the hair. Moore 
alludes to this custom in the oriental story of Lalla Rookh: 
“ And brides as delicate and fair 
As the white jasmine flowers they wear, 
Hath Yemen, in her blissful clime.” 
Cowper describes both the leaves and blossoms in the following 
lines: 
“ The deep dark green of whose unvarnished leaf 
Makes more conspicuous and illumes the more, » 
The bright profusion of her scattered stars.” 
The family embraces vines, shrubs, and trees, evergreen and 
deciduous; some of them hot-house plants, most of them half- 
hardy vines, and a few hardy ones. The fragrance of their blos¬ 
soms is their most charming trait. Most of the species will not 
bear the winters in our country. Their most beautiful use is for 
covering low walls or arbors in protected situations. 
The Common Jasmine, J. officinale , may be grown as a shrub, 
but is really a noble climber in congenial climates; as in its native 
wilds in Asia, Georgia, and the mountains of Caucasus, it grows 
forty to fifty feet in height, and attains similar dimensions in our 
southern States. Its young wood is of a fine deep-green color, 
and being quite abundant, gives the vine in winter the appearance 
of an evergreen plant. Leaves pinnate, five to seven leaflets. 
Flowers white, in June, July, and August, and exceedingly fragrant. 
This jasmine requires winter protection in the northern States. 
The Jasmine nudiflorum is a sort recently introduced ; with 
fragrant yellow blossoms from May to October. Mr. Meehan re¬ 
commends that it “ be trained to a stiff stake and pruned twice a 
year; it then grows very compact, and will support itself after the 
stake rots away, and makes one of the prettiest shrubbery bushes 
imaginable.” Requires protection in winter. 
