Jasmine

Where it grows

Common jasmine, J. officinale, originated in the foothills of the Caucasus and the Himalayas. The closely related Arabian jasmine, J. sambac, is grown across South and Southeast Asia for its heavily scented flowers. Commercial cultivation for perfumery centres on Grasse in France, on Egypt, and on India’s Madurai region.

How to recognise it

Jasmines are twining woody climbers up to ten metres long with opposite pinnate leaves and clusters of small, salver-shaped flowers two to three centimetres across. Each bloom has a long slender tube opening to five or six petal-lobes. The scent is heady, slightly indolic, and intensifies after dark.

Garden & cultural uses

It takes roughly eight thousand jasmine flowers, picked between four and ten in the morning, to produce a single gram of jasmine absolute, which is why jasmine is one of perfumery’s most expensive raw materials. Jasmine sambac flowers are layered with green tea leaves at night to scent the leaves and then sifted out in the morning.

In symbolism

Jasmine is the national flower of Pakistan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and is woven into the strands of Indian wedding garlands.