Solanum jasminoides
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Solanum jasminoides' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
A climbing evergreen shrub to about 20 ft high. Leaves simple, entire or with slightly undulate margins or sometimes with a few lobes or even free leaflets at the base, the entire leaves triangular-ovate, sometimes narrowly so, mostly 1 to 2 in. long and 1⁄2 to 11⁄4 in. wide, acuminate at the apex, truncate or slightly cordate at the base, bright green, smooth and glabrous above, glabrous beneath except for hairs in the axils of the principal veins; petioles elongating and twining round whatever support offers itself. Flowers up to twenty or so in broad lateral or terminal paniculate clusters; pedicels slender, often curved. Corolla pale blue or, in the commoner form, white (cv. ‘Album’), rotate, 3⁄4 to 1 in, wide. Anthers yellow, united into a tube. Style hairy near the base, exserted beyond the anthers. Fruits not seen. Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 568.
A native of S. Brazil, parts of Paraguay, also probably of Uruguay and bordering Argentina. Described by Paxton in 1840 from a cultivated plant, it was probably introduced by John Tweedie from the Rio Grande do Sul in S. Brazil (see further in Dr Harley’s article accompanying the plate in the Botanical Magazine. The type plant had pale blue flowers, but the commoner ‘Album’ was in cultivation by 1847 and was probably raised from the same batch of seed.
S. jasminoides is certainly more tender than S. crispum and may be cut to the ground in severe winters. But the loss of the younger growths from frost is of no account, some shortening back in spring being desirable in any case. Grown on a wall, it needs the support of wire or trellis, to which it will attach itself by its petioles.
Footnotes
John Tweedie worked as head gardener to several Scottish landowners before emigrating to Buenos Aires in 1825, at the age of fifty. During his explorations, which ranged from Brazil to Patagonia and were carried out at his own expense, he made important botanical collections and introduced many ornamental plants to the Glasnevin and Glasgow Botanic Gardens. He died in 1862.