jasmine
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jasmine
jasmine
Jasmine
in Russian, the name for two genera of ornamental plants.
(1) Garden jasmine, or mock orange (Philadelphus), is a genus of deciduous shrub of the hydrangea family. The leaves are serrate and opposite, ranging from oviform to lanceolate. The flowers have four white or cream petals and grow in racemes. The fruit is a capsule.
Mock orange grows in the underbrush of broad-leaved and mixed broad-leaved and conifer forests and on slopes amid other bushes. Its straight thick shoots are used for pipe stems— chubuki—so the plant is sometimes called chubushnik. There are 71 species in Europe, Asia, and North America and three in the USSR: Caucasian mock orange (P. caucasicus), which grows in the Caucasus; thinleaf mock orange (P. tenuifolius); and Schrenk mock orange (P. schrenkii), found in the Far East. Several other species are cultivated.
(2) True jasmine (Jasminum) is a genus of deciduous or evergreen shrub or vine of the family Oleaceae. The leaves are imparipinnate, ternate, or, less frequently, simple. The blossoms are white, yellow, or reddish, with long narrow trumpets and four to six (or 12) lobes. They are aromatic and appear singly, in corymbs, or in cymes. Jasminum includes approximately 200 species, primarily found in the tropics and subtropics of Asia, Africa, and South America. In the USSR there are three species: common, or poet’s, jasmine (J. officinale), which grows in the Caucasus; J. revolutum, found on the Darvaz Ridge; and J. fruticans, which grows in the Crimea and Caucasus. Essential oil is obtained from the blossoms of the Himalaya evergreen grandiflora jasmine (J. grandiflorum) and from sweet jasmine (J. odortissimum), grown on the island of Madeira. The evergreen vine Arabian jasmine (J. sambac) is a popular house plant.
REFERENCE
Derev’ia i kustarniki SSSR, vols. 3, 5. Moscow-Leningrad, 1954–60.T. G. LEONOVA