Yellow Jessamine

Gelsemium sempervirens

COMMON NAMES

• Carolina Jasmine
• False Jasmine
• Woodbine
• Yellow Jasmine
• Yellow Jessamine

Yellow jessamine - this perennial evergreen twines in vines that can grow up to 40 feet long, depending on their support system. Jessamine's glossy green leaves, two to four inches long, grow along its stem in opposite pairs. Clusters of fragrant funnel - shaped yellow flowers bloom in early spring.

The allure of the sweetly perfumed, brilliantly colored flowers of yellow jessamine masks the fact that it contains a deadly poison whose fatal effects have been compared to the hemlock's. A person or animal that eats any part of it can pass from paralysis to death without intervening loss of consciousness. Even bees that pollinate yellow jessamine are occasionally poisoned by it.

Despite its deadly properties, yellow jessamine once served as a medicine. During the 19th century, various preparations made from the roots were used as sedatives, painkillers, antispasmodics, and fever-reducing agents. Yellow jessamine was popular in the treatment of whooping cough and asthma. A tea made from the flowers was once recommended for coughs, shortness of breath, pleurisy, and upset stomachs. Fortunately, by the early 20th century, medicinal use of yellow jessamine had declined with the increasing recognition that all parts of the plant are dangerously toxic.

Yellow jessamine is the state flower of South Carolina. In 1924, the South Carolina General Assembly adopted it in the hope that its consistent reemergence at the end of winter would send a message of loyalty and patriotism. A South Carolina native wrote in "Legend of the Yellow Jessamine", a turn of the century poem," No flower that blooms holds such perfume/As kindness and sympathy won. Wherever there grows the sheltering pine/Is clinging a yellow jessamine vine."

PARTS USED

Rhizome, root.

USES

Native Americans used yellow jessamine as a blood purifier. More recently, a Mississippi farmer brought yellow jessamines medicinal properties to light by accidentally mistaking its root for that of another medicinal plant and curing his fever with it. Yellow jessamine root is extremely toxic. Only one teaspoon of the root can cause vertigo, weakness, and death from paralysis of respiratory muscles. Yellow jessamine contains substances that depress the nervous system, an action that makes it effective as a sedative, painkiller, and antispasmodic. Currently yellow jessamine is used only in homeopathic remedies to treat fever, convulsive coughing, and severe phobias.

Yellow jasmine is prescribed in small doses as a sedative and antispasmodic, most commonly to treat neuralgia (pain caused by nerve irritation or damage) .Yellow jasmine is often given for nerve pain affecting the face. The herb is also applied externally to treat intercostal neuralgia (nerve pain between the ribs) and sciatica (pain resulting from pressure on a nerve in the lower spine). Yellow jasmine's antispasmodic property is employed in treating whooping cough and asthma. The herb is occasionally taken to treat migraine, insomnia, and bowel problems, and also to reduce blood pressure.

Other medical uses
Homeopathy.

HABITAT AND CULTIVATION

Yellow jessamine is native to North America, growing in moist rich soils along the East Coast from Virginia down to Florida and into Mexico. Yellow yessamine also grows in forests of the southeastern United States.

CONSTITUENTS

Yellow jasmine contains indole alkaloids (including gelsemine and gelsedine), iridoids, coumarins, and tannins. The alkaloids found in the herb are toxic and act as a depressant to the central nervous system.

COMMENTS