Jasminum mesnyi


Jasminum mesnyi, the primrose jasmine or Japanese jasmine, is a species of flowering plant in the family Oleaceae, native to Vietnam and southern China.
Jasminum mesnyi has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. Essential oil is used in perfumery.

Description

Jasminum mesnyi is a scrambling, evergreen shrub growing to tall by wide, with fragrant yellow flowers in spring and summer. It grows mainly in the subtropical biome and its climbing habits can be arranged to constitute a dense shrub.
It has opposite, glossy, lanceolate leaves, 3–7 cm long, leaf blade broadly ovate or elliptic, sometimes suborbicular, trifoliate, simple at the base of the branchlets, petiole 0.5-1.5 cm; yellow flowers, 3 cm, solitary, on short axillary shoots, rarely terminal; Leafy, obovate or lanceolate bracts, 5-10 mm, surrounded by small foliaceous bracts; 5-6-calyx, narrow lobes; semi-double yellow corolla, with obtuse lobes. Spherical fruit, 8 mm, blackish, fleshy walls.

Cultivation

The form usually found in cultivation has semi-double flowers. It is not frost-hardy. With suitable support it can be grown as a slender climber, though in confined spaces it will require regular pruning.

Naturalization

It is also reportedly naturalized in Mexico, Honduras and parts of the southern United States.