Skip to main content
Wellcome Collection homepage
Visit us
What’s on
Stories
Collections
Get involved
About us
Sign in to your library account
Search our stories, images, catalogue and events
Library account
Search our stories, images, catalogue and events
Search
Overview search
Search our stories, images, catalogue and events
Search
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
Images
Close modal window
All images (1)
Catalogue
Digital Images
Online
Osmanthus delavayi Franch. Oleaceae Evergreen shrub. Distribution: China. Osmanthus is derived from the Greek for 'fragrant flower', delavayi from its discoverer, the French Missionary with the Missions Étrangères, and plant collector, Pierre Delavay (1834-1895). He sent 200,000 herbarium specimens containing 4000 species including 1,500 new species to Franchet at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. He sent seed of O. delavayi to France (1886), but only one germinated, and all the plants in cultivation until it was recollected 40 years later, arose from this plant (Bretschneider, 1896). The flowers are used to make a tea in China, but the berries (drupes) are not regarded as edible. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
Dr Henry Oakeley
All works (1)