Bergamo Wall Plant - False Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides)

  

Left: False jasmine decorates a door on via Sudorno in Bergamo.
Center: False jasmine on via Osmano in Bergamo.
Right: Jasmine flowers.

This plant is the quintessential Italian outdoor plant (beside ivy). It’s often grown on fences and supports so it’s a stretch to say it’s a wall plant. But it feels right to include it as a wall plant. Around the start of May in Bergamo you start to smell false jasmine everywhere you go. It then fades later seamlessly in the start of June with tiglio (linden), which has a similar scent.

False jasmine is Trachelospermum (syn. Rhyncospermum) jasminoides, a plant in the Apocynaceae (dogbane family) family.

A list of our wall plants we've seen in Bergamo thus far:

• [Apocynaceae] Trachelospermum jasiminoides - False jasmine
• [Caprifoliaceae] Valeriana rubra – Red valerian
• [Papavero] Papaver rhoeas (post) – Common poppy
• [Campanulaceae] Campanula poscharskyana (post) – Serbian Bellflower
• [Plantaginaceae] Antirrhinum majus (post) – Common Snapdragon
• [Crassulaceae[ Sedum palmeri (post)
• [Crassulaceae] Sedum album and Sedum dasyphyllum (post) – White Stonecrop and Corsican Stonecrop
• [Papavero] Fumaria officinalis (post) – Earth Smoke
• [Brassicaceae] Aubrieta deltoidea - Purple Rock Cress and Iberis sempervirens – Evergreen Candytuft (post)
• [Geraniaceae] Geranium robertianum (post) – Stinking Bob
• [Asteraceae] Erigeron karvinskianus (post) – Mexican Fleabane
• [Aspleniaceae] Asplenium ceterach (post) – Rustyback Fern
• [Aspleniaceae] Asplenium ruta-muraria (post) – Wall Rue
• [Aspleniaceae] Asplenium trichomanes (post) – Maidenhair spleenwort
• [Urticaceae] Parietaria diffusa (post) – Pellitory
• [Plantaginaceae] Cymbalaria muralis (post) – Pennywort

  

Left: False jasmine on via Sudorno in Bergamo
Center: False jasmine flowers.

Right: False jasmine on a wall on V.le V. Emanuele II in Bergamo.

False jasmine on V.le V. Emanuele II in Bergamo.