Gelsemium sempervirens, Carolina Jessamine

Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) is an evergreen, woody, climbing or trailing vine that occurs naturally in mesic and hydric hammocks, pine flatwoods, thickets, bottomland swamps and ruderal areas. It sometimes grows as an open trailing groundcover in the woods and also creates cascades of brilliant yellow as it grows up into trees and trails off branches. Its fragrant flowers typically bloom from winter through spring and will attract hummingbirds, butterflies and large bees who will wriggle their way inside its tubular flowers. Carolina jessamine flowers are lemon yellow and tubular with rounded, five-lobed calyces. They may be solitary or clustered. The plant’s dark green, glossy leaves are petiolate and elliptic to lanceolate with pointed tips. They are oppositely arranged. Leaf margins are entire. Seeds are flat with thin wings and are born in two-parted capsules. The species epithet sempervirens is from the Latin semper, or “always,” and virens, meaning “to be green or