Cestrum nocturnum
species of plant

Cestrum nocturnum, the lady of the night, night-blooming jasmine, night-blooming jessamine, night-scented jessamine, night-scented cestrum, or poisonberry, ( Urdu: رات کی رانی, romanized: raat ki rani ) is a species of plant in the potato family Solanaceae. It is native to Mexico, Central America and northern South America and is naturalized in South Asia.
Despite its common name, the species is not a "true jasmine" and not of the genus Jasminum.
Description
Cestrum nocturnum is an evergreen woody shrub with slender branches growing to 4 m (13 ft) tall. The plant is multi-branched and heavily foliated. The leaves are simple, narrow lanceolate, 6–20 cm (2.4–7.9 in) long and 2–4.5 cm (0.79–1.77 in) broad, smooth and glossy, with an entire margin. Towards the front they are pointed or tapered, the base is rounded or blunt. The leaf stalks are 0.8 to 2 cm long.
Inflorescences
The flowers are greenish-white, with a slender tubular corolla 2–2.5 cm (0.79–0.98 in) long with five acute lobes, 10–13 mm (0.39–0.51 in) diameter when open at night, and are produced in cymose inflorescences. A powerful, sweet perfume is released at night.
The public source identifies “Cestrum nocturnum” as species of plant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cestrum, nocturnum and species.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q36125. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cestrum nocturnum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.