The Chinese winter jasmine has no perfume, unlike many of the other Jasmine varieties, but is invaluable for its colour during the winter months. First introduced in 1844, it would be difficult to find an english garden today where it is not grown.

Dr Alexander von Bunge discovered Jasminum nudiflorum growing in Peking in 1830-1831 and Robert Fortune introduced it to England from the nurseries and gardens of Shangai. His description was somewhat incorrect though with regard to its growth habit - ‘a very ornamental dwarf shrub, and I have no doubt of it being perfectly hardy in this country. It is deciduous; the leaves falling off in its native country early in autumn, and leaving a number of large prominent flower-buds, which expand in early spring, often when the snow is on the ground, and look like little primroses’.

Initially grown in England as a greenhouse plant, by 1879 it had proved its hardiness but was not liked as much as it is today due to its lack of foliage, nudiflorum actually means without leaves. Happy in sun or shade and very effective sprawling down over a bank. Gertrude Jekyll suggested growing it over a rock, but it would require rather a large rock to accomodate its full adult size.