Jasminum polyanthum.
Winter jasmine is also known as Pink, Common, Climbing and Star jasmine.
Native to China and Myanmar it is sparsely naturalised in S.E. Queensland where it is a minor environmental weed.
They are vigorous evergreen twining climbers with stems up to 10 m long.
With no support they become a thick ground cover.
Young green stems are round or 4-angled while older ones at the base are woody.
New stems may have a few hairs but these are soon lost.
Spread is by suckers from the roots and long runners that root at the nodes.
The opposite leaves are on a grooved petiole up to 2 or 3 cm long.
The blade is divided into 5 or 7 (9) leaflets.
The terminal leaflet is on a petiolule up to 2 cm long.
The smaller lateral leaflets have no petiolule or one a few mms long.
The narrow lance-shaped leaflets are up to around 9 cm long by 3.5 cm wide.
The base is rounded or wedge-shaped and the tip pointed.
The upper surface is dark green, the lower paler and new growth may have a pink tinge.
New growth has simple hairs on the stems and leaves and leaflets have fine teeth on the edges.
Older leaves have no hairs, a few on both surfaces or only small tufts in the basal axils of the midvein on the lower surface.
Branched (panicles) or unbranched (racemes) inflorescences are terminal on the main and short axillary side branches.
They can be sparse with only a few flowers or have up to 50.
Flowers are on a pedicel up to 2.5 cm long.
There are bracts at the base of the branches and bracteoles under the pedicels.
The green leaf-like bracts, with a pointed tip are up to 6 mm long.
The calyx has a tube only 1 or 2 mm long with 5 (4 to 8) narrow pointed lobes up to 5 mm long that may be smooth or slightly hairy.
The corolla has a narrow deep pink tube up to 2.5 cm long.
The 5 spreading oblong to ovate lobes, up to 1.5 cm long are white.
There are 2 stamens on short filaments that insert onto the corolla tube.
The 2 carpels remain joined at the base but develop independently of each other and one may abort.
Each has 2 ovules and again, one may abort.
Some plants have a short style with the 2 stigma lobes in the corolla tube.
On other plants the style is long so the stigmas are above the corolla.
The fruit is a black berry.
If both carpels develop it is a paired (didymous) berry around 1 cm long.
If one carpel aborts there is 1 roughly spherical berry around 5 mm long.
J.F.
