Jasminum × stephanense Lemoine

A hybrid between J. beesianum and J. officinale, raised at St-Etienne in France by Thomas Javitt and put into commerce by Messrs Lemoine and Son of Nancy, about 1921. It is a vigorous climber with slender, glabrous, angled young shoots. The leaves vary from the simple ovate-lanceolate ones of J. beesianum to the pinnate ones of J. officinale, but the leaflets rarely, if ever, number more than five to each leaf, the terminal leaflet the largest; they are dull green above, slightly downy beneath; stalk 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. long. Flowers borne in terminal clusters, fragrant, soft pale pink. The slender tube of the corolla is about 1⁄2 in. long and the flower is about the same in width across the rounded, auricled lobes. The bell-shaped base of the calyx is 1⁄8 in. long, downy, with erect awl-shaped lobes of about the same length.

At Kew this jasmine flowers in June and July. It is attractive enough to have been given an Award of Merit, July 6, 1937. The same hybrid has also been found in the wild. Père Delavay collected it in 1887 and in 1922 Joseph Rock found it in Yunnan.