Jasminum sambac

Jasminum sambac, also called Arabian jasmine, Sambac jasmine, or Mogra, originally comes from India. It is now grown widely, especially in West Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, and has become naturalized in places like Mauritius, Madagascar, the Maldives, Chiapas, Central America, southern Florida, the Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles.

Southeast Asia

This small shrub or vine can reach 0.5 to 3 meters tall. People cultivate it mainly for its attractive, strongly fragrant flowers, which are used to scent perfumes and jasmine tea. It is the national flower of the Philippines, where it is called sampaguita, and one of three national flowers of Indonesia, known there as melati putih.

Description

The plant is an evergreen vine or shrub, varying a lot in form—likely due to spontaneous mutation, natural hybridization, and autopolyploidy. Cultivated plants rarely produce seeds, so they are reproduced by cuttings, layering, marcotting, or other asexual methods. Its leaves are ovate, 4 to 12.5 cm long and 2 to 7.5 cm wide, arranged opposite each other or in whorls of three. Unlike most other jasmines, the leaves are simple, not pinnate, and are smooth except for a few hairs on the veins near the leaf base.

Flowers bloom year-round in clusters of 3 to 12 at the branch tips. They are strongly scented, with a white corolla 2 to 3 cm across that has 5 to 9 lobes. The flowers open at night, usually between 6 and 8 pm, and close in the morning, staying open for 12 to 20 hours. The fruit is a purple to black berry about 1 cm in diameter.

Taxonomy and nomenclature

In terms of classification, Jasminum sambac belongs to the genus Jasminum, tribe Jasmineae, in the olive family Oleaceae. Its common English name, "Arabian jasmine," comes from its widespread cultivation in the Arabian Peninsula. Early Chinese records suggest it originated in Southeast Asia. This species, along with nine others, was carried by humans into Arabia and Persia for garden cultivation, and from there introduced to Europe as ornamentals, where it was known as "sambac" in the 18th century.

The Medieval Arabic word "zanbaq" referred to jasmine flower-oil from any jasmine species. That term entered late medieval Latin as "sambacus" and "zambacca" with the same meaning, and later post-medieval Latin plant taxonomy adopted "sambac" as the species label. J.