Flora of New Zealand Series

Italian jasmine

Erect or sub-erect evergreen, glabrous or almost glabrous shrub to c. 2.5 m high. Shoots strongly angled. Lvs alternate, pinnate, with 3-7-(11), sessile leaflets; petiole usually 0.5-1.5 cm long. Terminal leaflet 0.7-5 × 0.4-2 cm, elliptic, lanceolate or ovate, entire, sometimes minutely ciliate on margins; base narrow- to broad-cuneate; apex acute or short-acuminate; lateral leaflets often shorter and wider. Cymes axillary, 3-10-flowered (sometimes more in cultivation), usually glabrous, occasionally puberulent; pedicels 5-25 mm long, slender. Calyx 2-3 mm long; tube campanulate; teeth very short, acute. Corolla 1.5-2 cm long, yellow, single; tube 1.2-1.5 cm long; lobes c. 0.5 cm long, elliptic, ± rounded, minutely ciliate. Style c. 1/2 length of tube. Fr. 6-8 mm diam., globular or 2-lobed, black, glossy; pulp scanty, black.

N.: New Plymouth, near Shannon (Manawatu); S.: Takaka (N.W. Nelson), Hokitika, near Dunedin.

Temperate Himalaya, Upper Burma, S.W. China 1958

Well-established in scrub on limestone hillsides, also waste land and around forest or plantation margins, cultivation escape.

FL Jan-Dec.

J. humile is usually a shrub, but sometimes plants assume a more scrambling habit. Cultivated plants from warmer parts of the country often have noticeably larger leaflets and fls than do wild plants.