Seasonal Wild Flowers

Latin name

Jasminum officinale

Family

Oleaceae

Flowering season

June to October.

English distribution

The garden plant is found throughout the country.

The naturalised escape is rather thinly scattered

throughout the country.

See the BSBI distribution map for Summer Jasmine 

Habitat

It is a neophyte, which has been grown in the UK

since the 1540s, and was not noted in the wild until

the 1960s.

It grows on walls, waste ground, roadsides and rubbish

tips.

Description

Summer Jasmine is a deciduous, scrambling, twisting,

highly aromatic shrub growing up to 20m.

Flower buds have a pink tube section white folded petals.

Flowers are creamy white, 2cm, with 5 petals and a long,

corolla tube.

There is a bilobed stigma on a long style.

There are 2 stamens with long, yellow anthers inserted

within the corolla tube.

The fruit is a green berry turning black.

Leaves are pinnate with a terminal lobe.

Leaflets are lanceolate.

The stems are green, wiry and can twist tightly round other

plants.

The branches arch and clamber, and are used by

gardeners to cover trellises and to grow against against

fences and walls.

The stems can form new plants from rooting nodes

and can also grow from seed.

Summer Jasmine is rather similar to Winter Jasmine

which mainly flowers in the winter months.