Gelsemium

Gelsemium is a genus of flowering plants belonging to family Gelsemiaceae. The genus contains three species of shrubs to straggling or twining climbers. Two species are native to North America, and one to China and Southeast Asia.

All three species of this genus are poisonous. Gelsemium has been shown to contain methoxyindoles.


Species
Gelsemium sempervirens is a twining vine in the family Gelsemiaceae, native to warm temperate and tropical America from Guatemala north to the southeastern United States. It has a number of common names including yellow jessamine, Carolina jasmine or jessamine, evening trumpetflower, gelsemium and woodbine.
It can grow to 3-6 m high when given suitable climbing support in trees, with thin stems. The leaves are evergreen, lanceolate, 5-10 cm long and 1-1.5 cm broad, and lustrous, dark green. The flowers are borne in clusters, the individual flowers yellow, sometimes with an orange center, trumpet-shaped, 3 cm long and 2.5-3 cm broad.
All parts of this plant contain the toxic strychnine-related alkaloids gelsemine and gelseminine and should not be consumed. The sap may cause skin irritation in sensitive individuals. Children, mistaking this flower for honeysuckle, have been poisoned by sucking the nectar from the flower. The nectar is also toxic to honeybees, and causes brood death when gathered by the bees.
Despite the hazards, this is a popular garden plant in warmer areas, frequently being trained to grow over arbors or to cover walls.
Yellow Jessamine is the state flower of South Carolina.

Gelsemium rankinii - Rankin's Jessamine, Swamp Jessamine, Rankin's Trumpetflower. Native to southeastern United States.

Gelsemium elegans - Twining climber, native to India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, northern Myanmar, northern Thailand, Vietnam, and the Chinese provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Taiwan, Yunnan, and Zhejiang.

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