Night jasmine

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Night jasmine
Night jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum)

Night jasmine ( Cestrum nocturnum )

Systematics
Asterids
Euasterids I
Order : Nightshade (Solanales)
Family : Nightshade family (Solanaceae)
Genre : Hammer bushes ( cestrum )
Type : Night jasmine
Scientific name
Cestrum nocturnum
L.

The night jasmine ( Cestrum nocturnum , Syn. : Cestrum suberosum Jacq. ) Is a plant from the genus of cestrum ( Cestrum ) in the family of the nightshade family (Solanaceae). This species, native to the Caribbean and Central America, has become feral in many tropical and subtropical countries. Night jasmine is also used as an ornamental plant, especially because of the strong scent it gives off mainly at night and in the evening hours.

description

The night jasmine is an occasionally climbing shrub with slender branches that can grow to heights of up to 5 meters. The plant is hairy with weak downy hairs and heavily foliated. The whole-edged leaves are 6 to 15 cm long and 2 to 4.5 cm wide. Towards the front they are pointed or tapered, the base is rounded or truncated. At first the leaves are finely hairy, but with age they become bald. The leaf stalks are 0.8 to 2 cm long.

The mostly many-flowered, drooping inflorescences are terminal or in the armpits. They are clustered, sparsely branched panicles , on whose inflorescence axes there are herbaceous bracts . The flower stalks are accompanied by linear-lanceolate bracts and are 2 to 3 mm long. The flowers have a very strong scent at night. The five sepals are fused into a bell-shaped, approximately 2 mm long calyx and have five pointed lobes, which are slightly enlarged, ribbed and spiky on the fruit. The inside and outside of the calyx are finely haired. The crown is greenish or yellowish white in color, in dried herbarium it is yellowish. The corolla-tube has a length of 14 to 17 mm, is hairless on the outside and occasionally covered with fine hairs at the point of attachment of the stamens on the inside . The five stamens are identical, the stamens are free for about 3 mm in length and are clearly serrated at or just above the point of attachment to the crown. The scar protrudes slightly over the crown.

The fruit is a white, elliptical berry about 1 cm in length that contains only a few seeds .

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 16.

Occurrence and locations

The night jasmine is native to the Antilles and parts of Central America. The location of the type specimen is Jamaica . In many gardens throughout the tropical region, the species is often grown as an ornamental plant because of its strong scent.

The plant grows in damp and wet locations in thickets and forests, only occasionally in open locations. It is found at altitudes below 1800 m.

Systematics

Cestrum nocturnum is the type of the genus hammer bushes ( Cestrum ).

literature

  • William D'Arcy: Flora of Panama (Family 170. Solanaceae) . In: Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden , Volume 60, Number 3, 1973. Pages 573-780.
  • Johnnie L. Gentry and Paul C. Standley: Flora of Guatemala , Fieldiana Botany, Volume 24, Part X, Numbers 1 and 2. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 1974.
  • Zhi-Yun Zhang, Anmin Lu and William G. D'Arcy: Solanaceae In: ZY Wu and PH Raven (eds.): Flora of China . Volume 17. Science Press, Beijing and Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, 1994. Pages 300-332.
  • JH Wiersema and B. León: World Economic Plants , CRC Press, p. 123, 1999, ISBN 0-8493-2119-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. Linnaeus, Carl von: Species Plantarum 1: 191. 1753 (1 May 1753)
  2. Global Invasive Species Database, Cestrum nocturnum (edited: September 13, 2010, viewed: July 24, 2013)
  3. Lillian Overland, American Journal of Botany Vol. 47, No. 5 (May, 1960), pp. 378-382
  4. ^ Cestrum nocturnum at Tropicos.org. In: IPCN Chromosome Reports . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis

Web links

Commons : Night Jasmine ( Cestrum nocturnum )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files