Jasminum sambac Seeds | Arabian Jasmine
LATIN NAME: Jasminum sambac
COMMON NAME: Arabian Jasmine
Plant Profile
A heap of fresh jasmine blossoms heats itself. The flowers continue to respire after picking, and a deep pile will warm and brown in the middle, losing the volatiles the grower is after. So the picking is spread in thin layers in a cool, airy place and used the same day.
Jasminum sambac is a scrambling evergreen shrub of the olive family, with opposite pairs of glossy, deep green leaves and long wiry stems that climb given a support. The flowers sit in small clusters at the tips of the shoots, each a white, waxy tube opening into a ring of petals; the single form has a short tube and three to five petals, while the doubles build up whorl after whorl. Growth stops below about ten degrees, and flowering comes in flushes.
Jasmine tea, in its better grades, is not a tea with flowers in it. Dried green tea leaf is spread out with freshly picked blossoms, left together while the flowers open and give off their volatiles, and the spent blossoms are then sifted out and replaced. The operation is repeated over several successive evenings, each round loading more scent into the leaf; a few fresh flowers are often left in the finished tea for appearance, and the leaf is dried again to fix the aroma.
Across South and Southeast Asia the flowers are strung into garlands, used in offerings and worn in the hair. In a warm garden the shrub makes a loose, dark-leaved mound that can be trained over a porch or clipped into a low hedge, and it is at its best where the air is humid.
Science & Biotechnology
When the volatile oil of jasmine flowers was first separated, one of the compounds isolated from it was a small fatty-acid derivative that became known as methyl jasmonate. It turned out to be a signalling molecule made by plants generally, produced when tissue is wounded, and the whole jasmonate family was named after the flower it came from.
The flower is too delicate for steam distillation, so the trade works by solvent extraction: fresh blossoms are stirred in a volatile solvent such as hexane, which strips the waxes and the odour together, and the concrete that results is washed with alcohol to leave the absolute. That absolute is a dark, heavy material used in small amounts to give a floral heart. The older method was enfleurage, pressing fresh flowers into a tray of purified fat and replacing them as the fat took up the scent.
The headspace of an opening flower is built mainly from benzenoid volatiles, among them benzyl acetate, methyl benzoate, benzyl benzoate and linalool, with indole supplying the heavy, faintly animal note that makes a mass of jasmine smell richer than the sum of its parts. Release is rhythmic: it climbs as the flower opens and falls away as the corolla fades, so the perfume is strongest in the evening.
Uses & Benefits
Jasmine is harvested at the point of opening. The blossoms are picked in the cool of the morning while the buds are still tight or just splitting, because the volatile load is at its peak and the flowers bruise if they are handled warm.
Selection has pushed the flower towards more petals. ‘Grand Duke of Tuscany’ is the classic doubled form, a tight rosette that opens slowly over successive evenings and holds its scent longest, while the single ‘Maid of Orleans’ is the type most wanted for scenting tea, because its perfume is released more freely. Doubled forms set no seed and must be increased by cuttings.
Growing from Seed
Seed is set only by the single-flowered forms, so with a doubled plant the reliable route is a cutting of semi-ripe wood. Where seed is available, surface-sow it on a fine, free-draining mix, press it in lightly, and keep the pan warm, humid and bright but out of direct sun.
Move seedlings into small pots as soon as they have two true leaves, then pot on as the roots fill each size. Plant out where the ground does not fall below about ten degrees, in full sun and a soil enriched with compost but freely drained, and give the shrub a metre and a half to two metres of space or a frame to climb on. Feed while the flower buds are forming, cut the longest stems back after each flush to keep the bush dense, and watch for scale insects and spider mites, which both thrive where the air is dry.
Our Take
If you grow jasmine for scent rather than for tea, the common jasmine (Jasminum officinale) is the hardier climber for a wall, the winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) covers the bare months with yellow, and the gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides) wants the same warm, humid corner. To taste what the scenting rounds are for, a jar of jasmine dragon pearl tea says it better than a description.
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