Epithet is the Latin for paniculate in reference to the inflorescence.

Orange Jasmine, Jessamine, Chinese Box, Mock Orange.

Evergreen tree to c. 7 (–20) m high, but often a shrub. Bark smooth, pale to whitish. Young shoots glabrous to puberulous or distinctly hairy. Leaves imparipinnate, to 7 (–9)-foliolate, rarely trifoliolate, to 17 cm long, glossy, usually glabrous; leaflets cuneate-obovate, ovate, elliptic or almost rhomboid, (0.6–) 2.5–10 cm long, (0.5–) 1.2–5 cm wide, sometimes reflexed marginally, entire or sometimes weakly crenulate (especially towards apex), acute to acuminate, coriaceous, ± glabrous; petiolule 2–6 mm long. Flowers fragrant, in terminal and/or lateral corymbose thyrses; pedicels (0.3–) 1–1.3 cm long. Calyx lobes (4) 5, narrowly deltoid, c. 1 mm long, sparsely pubescent. Petals (4) 5, narrowly obovate, (8–) 13–18 (–25) mm long, white or cream, recurved at anthesis. Stamens 10. Ovary 2-locular; stylehead glandular. Berry ovoid, c. 10–14 mm long, often apically pointed, glabrous, orange-red; seeds densely hairy.

Flowers June–March; fruits January–August.

Native and naturalised.

Native to northern tropical Australia, mostly in eastern Queensland, but with some records from Christmas Island, Western Australia and the Northern Territory; sparingly naturalised in New South Wales. Occurs from Sri Lanka, throughout Indomalesia to subtropical China and New Caledonia; widely cultivated in tropical countries and, under glass, in temperate ones.

Often common, especially as an understorey shrub, in vine thickets particularly behind beaches and in vine forest, on basalt or calcareous soils, to 200 m altitude. On Christmas Island collected from the limestone pinnacles on Rocky Point and also planted in gardens (Du Puy & Telford 1993: 304).

Ch.Is.: Rocky Point, D.A. Powell 744 (K), fide Du Puy & Telford (1993: 304).

W.A.: N side of Prince Frederick Harbour, P.G. Wilson 11406 (PERTH).

N.T.: Winchelsea Island off Groot Eylandt, 16 Jan. 1803, R. Brown s.n. [Iter Austral. 5341 p.p.] (BM, NSW); Guy Cave Area, Sixteen Mile Cave Reserve S of Katherine, L.J. Webb & J.G. Tracey 12838 (DNA).

Qld: 4 miles  [c. 6.4 km] E of Kilcummin Station, L. Adams 1260 (B, K, L, NSW); Wide Bay, Kepnock, L.S. Smith 4161 (BRI).

N.S.W.: Coocoomback Island, Manning River, Taree, Feb. 1987, J. Stockard s.n. (NSW).

"The wood is hard and dense but tends to split unless carefully seasoned. The yellow root wood is used in Malaya for small objects such as kris (ceremonial dagger) handles." (Du Puy & Telford 1993: 304).

Grown as an ornamental and popular as a screening/hedge plant.

See Mabberley (2013, 2016, 2022), Nguyen et al. (2019), Mou et al. (2021).

The species comprises a number of apparently distinctive entities, one of which, probably domesticated in China, has been long and widely cultivated including in Australia, where it is locally naturalised (e.g. Queensland, Chelona Shoal, Mackay, G.N. Batianoff 9303478, BRI); this is the Orange Jasmine, ‘Murraya exotica’, a form with rather small leathery leaflets: it is the Shan Fan or China Box (Needham 1986) used as a pesticide in Medieval China, especially to protect books from insects, though its status is still unclear and it may even represent a distinct wild species.

Wild plants in Australia, with very few intermediate exceptions, from ‘dry’ semi-deciduous to deciduous vine thickets tend to be low sprawling shrubs less than 3 m high with small leaflets, highly aromatic when crushed, and pedicels 3–7 mm long; they are found from Cape York to southeast Queensland and there are some records from Western Australia and Northern Territory (‘Small Leaves’ of Brophy et al. (1994); see Mabberley (1998) for discussion). Plants from ‘less dry’ semi-deciduous notophyll forests form small trees 3–6 m high with larger leaflets, less aromatic when crushed, and pedicels 10–13 mm long; these have been recorded across northern tropical Australia (‘Big Leaves’ of Brophy et al. (1994)).

Their relationship to plants in neighbouring territories is not yet fully elucidated. Recent work (Nguyen 2012), to be extended in scope, so far indicates that in using characters of leaflet shape and pubescence, besides molecular markers, i) the cultivated ‘M. exotica’ probably native only in southern China and northern Vietnam, is indeed argued to be specifically distinct from M. paniculata s. str. (native to Malesia), ii) the native Australian populations (also in Timor) of M. paniculata s. lat., are argued to be worthy of specific rank as ‘M. ovatifoliolata’, though that may not be the earliest available specific epithet. In general terms these taxa, at whatever rank, would therefore appear to be allopatric; however, according to Nguyen (2012), there are populations of putative hybrids (?‘M. ×omphalocarpa Hayata’) between ‘M. exotica’ and ‘M. ovatifoliolata’ recorded from Lan Yu (off southern Taiwan), and also from western New Guinea, in neither of which localities have either of the suggested parental taxa so far been recorded.

Murraya paniculata has been hybridised with species of Citrus, one of which also has pinnate leaves (Kubitzki et al. 2011) and at least one of which can be grafted on it (Swingle 1943). It is held to be a mosquito-repellent and a water-soluble toxin extracted from the leaves has been shown to kill eggs and nymphs of the Asian citrus blackfly.

A treatment for Murraya paniculata occurring on Christmas Island is provided by Du Puy in Du Puy & Telford (1993: 303–304).

W.T. Swingle in H.J. Webber & L.D. Batchelor, The Citrus Industry 1: 195, fig. 29 (1943); A.B. Graf, Tropica t. 872 (1978); E.J.H. Corner, Wayside Trees of Malaya 3rd edn: 669, figs 219, 220; pl. 145 (1988); E. Soepadmo & K.M. Wong, Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak 1: 404, t. 13 (1995); A.N. Rodd, The Ultimate Book of Trees & Shrubs for Australian Gardens 305 (1996); R. Melzer & J. Plumb, Plants of Capricornia 312 (2011), as M. ovatifoliolata; A. Wilson (ed.), Flora of Australia 26: 408, pl. 59 (2013).

Brophy, J.J., Forster, P.I. & Goldsack, R.J. (1994). Diversity in Australian populations of Murraya paniculata (Rutaceae): new evidence from volatile leaf oils. Australian Systematic Botany 7: 409–418.

Corner, E.J.H. (1988). Wayside Trees of Malaya 3rd edn. (The Malayan Nature Society: Kuala Lumpur).

Du Puy, D.J. & Telford, I.R.H. (1993). Rutaceae, in George, A.S. et al. (eds), Flora of Australia 50: 299–307. (Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra); Murraya pp. 303–304.

Kubitzki, K., Kallunki, J.A., Duretto, M.F. & Wilson, P.G. (2011). Rutaceae, in Kubitzki, K. (ed.), The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. (Springer: Berlin). pp. 276–356.

Mabberley, D.J. (1998). Australian Citreae with notes on other Aurantioideae (Rutaceae). Telopea 7: 333–344.

Mabberley, D.J. (2013). Murraya, in Wilson, A.J.G. (ed.), Flora of Australia 26: 501–503. (ABRS: Canberra/CSIRO Publishing: Melbourne).

Mabberley, D.J. (2016). The typification of Murraya, M. exotica and M. paniculata (Rutaceae): its significance for the world citrus industry. Taxon 65: 366–371.

Mabberley, D.J. (2022). A classification for edible citrus: an update, with a note on Murraya (Rutaceae). Telopea 25: 271–284.

Mou, F.-J., Peng, Y., Li, Y.-G. & Hu, X. (2021). Taxonomic revision of Murraya J.Koenig (Rutaceae) based on the molecular phylogeny and morphological characters. Taiwania 66: 387–397.

Needham, J. (1986). Science and Civilisation in China VI 1: 428, 495, 501.

Nguyen, H.C. (2012). Circumscription of Murraya and Merrillia (Sapindales: Rutaceae: Aurantioideae) and susceptibility of species and forms to huanglongbing. PhD thesis, University of Western Sydney.

Nguyen, C.H., Beattie, G.A.C., Haigh, A.M., Astiti, I.P., Mabberley, D.J., Weston, P.H. & Holford, P. (2019). Molecular differentiation of the Murraya paniculata complex (Rutaceae: Aurantioideae: Aurantieae). BMC Biology 19: 236. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1555-4

Rodd, A.N. (1996). The Ultimate Book of Trees & Shrubs for Australian Gardens. (Random House: Milsons Point).

Swingle, W.T. (1943). Murraya, in Webber, H.J. & Batchelor, L.D. Citrus Industry 1: 192–206.

Revised edition, 4 April 2023. Based on D.J. Mabberley, Murraya, in A.J.G. Wilson (ed.), Flora of Australia 26: 501–503 (2013). Updated by P.G. Kodela (9 September 2022, 4 April 2023).