The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Gardenia is a genus of about 140 flowering shrubs and small trees in the coffee family, with the widely grown Gardenia jasminoides (cape jasmine) valued for its large, strongly scented white flowers. Commonly grown members are shrubs; the key to success is warm, humid conditions and acidic soil.
Gardenia is a genus of flowering plants in the coffee family, Rubiaceae, native to the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, Madagascar, Pacific Islands, and Australia.
The Gardenia genus was named by Carl Linnaeus (though the name was first proposed to him in 1753 by Jane Colden, who often goes uncredited ) and John Ellis. The genus was named after Alexander Garden (1730–1791), a Scottish naturalist. The type species is Gardenia jasminoides, as first published by Ellis in 1761.
Gardenia plants are prized for the strong sweet scent of their flowers, which can be very large in size in some species.
Gardenia jasminoides (syn. G. grandiflora, G. florida) is cultivated as a house plant. This species can be difficult to grow because it originated in warm humid tropical areas. It demands high humidity to thrive, and bright (but not direct) light. It flourishes in acidic soils with good drainage and thrives on temperatures of 20–23 °C (68–73 °F) during the day and 15–16 °C (59–61 °F) in the evening. Potting soils developed especially for gardenias are available. G. jasminoides grows no larger than 18 inches in height and width when grown indoors. In climates where it can be grown outdoors, it can attain a height of 6 feet. If water touches the flowers, they will turn brown.
Crocetin is a chemical compound usually obtained from Crocus sativus, which can also be obtained from the fruit of Gardenia jasminoides. Gordonin is a novel methoxylated flavonol secreted in golden-colored resinous droplets of Gardenia gordonii, which is one of several critically endangered species of the Fiji Islands.
Many of the native gardenias of the Pacific Islands and elsewhere in the paleotropics contribute towards the production of a diverse array of natural products. Methoxylated and oxygenated flavonols, flavones, and triterpenes accumulate on the vegetative and floral buds as yellow to brown droplets of secreted resins. Many focused phytochemical studies of these bud exudates have been published, including a population-level study of two rare, sympatric species of Fiji, G. candida and G. grievei.
Cape jasmine · Gardenia mutabilis · Star Flower · Tahitian Gardenia · Gardenia tubifera
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gardenia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
