Water Jasmine

Common name: Water Jasmine, lady's earrings, sacred buddhist, wild water plum, wondrous wrightia
Botanical name: Wrightia religiosa Family: Apocynaceae (Oleander family)
Synonyms: Echites religiosus
Water Jasmine is a shrubs up to 3 m tall. Branchlets are thin, cylindric, often with many lateral short branchlets. Leaf stalks are 2-4 mm long. Leaves are elliptic, ovate, or narrowly oblong, 2.5-7.5 X 1.5-3 cm, lateral veins 5-7 pairs. Flowers are borne in 1-13-flowered cymes often on short few-leaved branches, carried on short stalks. Flower stalks are 1.5-2 cm long, thin, finely hairy. Sepals are ovate, about 1.5 mm. Flowers are white, nearly flat. Flower tube is 3-4 mm, hairless. Petals are ovate, about 7 mm, densely velvety on both surfaces. Stamens remain inside the mouth of the flower tube. Follicles are linear, free, 12-17 cm. Seeds are narrowly spindle-shaped, about 8 mm. Water Jasmine is native to Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Cultivated in many parts of the world for medicine. Flowering: all year.
Medicinal uses: Water Jasmine has been traditionally used as a medicinal herb and roots are used to cure skin diseases.