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Sweet Osmanthus

Sweet Osmanthus

Overview
Osmanthus fragrans (Sweet Osmanthus; Chinese
Chinese language
Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

: 桂花 guìhuā; Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...

: 金木犀 kinmokusei; also known as Sweet Olive, Tea Olive and Fragrant Olive) is a species of Osmanthus
Osmanthus
Osmanthus is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae, mostly native to warm temperate Asia but one species in North America . It is sometimes included in Nestegis.They range in size from shrubs to small trees, 2-12 m tall...

native to Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.Asia is traditionally defined as part of the...

, from the Himalaya east through southern China
China
China is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....

 (Guizhou
Guizhou
' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. Its provincial capital city is Guiyang.- History :...

, Sichuan
Sichuan
' is a province in Southwestern China with its capital in Chengdu. The current name of the province, 四川 , is an abbreviation of 四川路 , or "Four circuits of rivers", which is itself abbreviated from 川峡四路 , or "Four circuits of rivers and gorges", named after the division of the...

, Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately 394,000 square kilometers . The capital of the province is Kunming...

) and to Taiwan and to southern Japan
Japan
is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.. Sweet osmanthus is also the 'city flower' of Hangzhou
Hangzhou
' is a sub-provincial city located in the Yangtze River Delta in the People's Republic of China, and the capital of Zhejiang province. Located southwest of Shanghai, as of 2004 the entire Hangzhou Region or Prefecture-level city had a registered population of 6.4 million people...

, China.

It is an evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaves all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....

 shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 or small tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 growing to 3–12 m tall.
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Encyclopedia
Osmanthus fragrans (Sweet Osmanthus; Chinese
Chinese language
Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

: 桂花 guìhuā; Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...

: 金木犀 kinmokusei; also known as Sweet Olive, Tea Olive and Fragrant Olive) is a species of Osmanthus
Osmanthus
Osmanthus is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae, mostly native to warm temperate Asia but one species in North America . It is sometimes included in Nestegis.They range in size from shrubs to small trees, 2-12 m tall...

native to Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.Asia is traditionally defined as part of the...

, from the Himalaya east through southern China
China
China is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....

 (Guizhou
Guizhou
' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. Its provincial capital city is Guiyang.- History :...

, Sichuan
Sichuan
' is a province in Southwestern China with its capital in Chengdu. The current name of the province, 四川 , is an abbreviation of 四川路 , or "Four circuits of rivers", which is itself abbreviated from 川峡四路 , or "Four circuits of rivers and gorges", named after the division of the...

, Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately 394,000 square kilometers . The capital of the province is Kunming...

) and to Taiwan and to southern Japan
Japan
is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.. Sweet osmanthus is also the 'city flower' of Hangzhou
Hangzhou
' is a sub-provincial city located in the Yangtze River Delta in the People's Republic of China, and the capital of Zhejiang province. Located southwest of Shanghai, as of 2004 the entire Hangzhou Region or Prefecture-level city had a registered population of 6.4 million people...

, China.

It is an evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaves all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....

 shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall. A large number of plants can be either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 or small tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 growing to 3–12 m tall. The leaves
Leaf
In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...

 are 7–15 cm long and 2.6–5 cm broad, with an entire or finely toothed margin. The flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...

s are white, pale yellow, yellow, or orange-yellow, small (1 cm long), with a four-lobed corolla 5 mm diameter, and have a strong fragrance; they are produced in small clusters in the late summer and autumn. The fruit
Fruit
The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds, and the presence of seeds indicates that a structure is most likely a fruit, though not all seeds come from...

 is a purple-black drupe
Drupe
In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...

 10–15 mm long containing a single hard-shelled seed
Seed
A seed , referred to as a kernel in some plants, is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

; it is mature in the spring about six months after flowering.

Cultivation and uses



It is cultivated as an ornamental plant
Ornamental plant
Ornamental plants are typically grown in the flower garden or as house plants. Most commonly they are grown for the display of their flowers. Other common ornamental features include leaves, scent, fruit, stem and bark. In some cases, unusual features may be considered ornamental, such as the...

 in garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form is known as a residential garden. Western gardens are almost universally...

s in Asia, Europe, North America, and elsewhere in the world, for its deliciously fragrant flowers which carry the scent of ripe peach
Peach
The peach is known as a species of Prunus native to China that bears an edible juicy fruit also called a peach. It is a deciduous tree growing to 4–10 m tall, belonging to the subfamily Prunoideae of the family Rosaceae...

es or apricot
Apricot
The Apricot is a species of Prunus, classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus...

s. A number of cultivar
Cultivar
A cultivar is a cultivated plant that has been selected and given a unique name because of desired characteristics; it is usually distinct from similar plants and when propagated it retains those characteristics....

s have been selected for garden use, with varying flower colour.

Culinary uses



In Chinese
Chinese language
Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, the plant is called (樨) or guìhuā (桂花), and its flowers, called guì huā (桂花, literally "cinnamon flower" or "cassia flower") are used, infused with green or black tea leaves, to create a scented tea called guì huā chá (桂花茶).

In Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine originated in China and has become widespread in many other parts of the world — from Asia to the Americas, Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa. In recent years, connoisseurs of Chinese cuisine have also sprouted in Eastern Europe and South Asia...

, the flowers are also used to produce osmanthus-scented jam (called guì huā jiàng, 桂花醬 or 桂花酱), sweet cakes (called guì huā gāo, 桂花糕), dumplings, soups, and even liquor (called guì huā jiǔ, 桂花酒; or 桂花陈酒, guì huā chén jiǔ).http://home.hkstar.com/~chnwine/KUEIDOC.HTML Osmanthus jam is used as an ingredient in a type of gruel
Gruel
Gruel is a food preparation consisting of some type of cereal— oat, wheat or rye flour, or also rice— boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk than eaten and need not even be cooked...

 called chátāng
Chatang
Chatang or seasoned flour mush is a traditional gruel common to both Beijing cuisine and Tianjin cuisine, and often sold as a snack on the street. It is made from sorghum flour and/or broomcorn millet and/or proso millet flour and glutinous millet flour...

(茶汤), which is made from sorghum
Sorghum
Sorghum is a genus of numerous species of grasses, some of which are raised for grain and many of which are used as fodder plants either cultivated or as part of pasture. The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. Species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of all continents...

 or millet
Millet
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...

 flour and sugar mixed with boiling water. This dish is typical of the northern city of Tianjin
Tianjin
' is the sixth largest city of the People's Republic of China in terms of urban population. Administratively it is one of the four municipalities that have provincial-level status, reporting directly to the central government...

, although it may also be found in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing is a metropolis in northern China and the capital of the People's Republic of China...

.

External links