Prosperity,
in every drop.

Yang and colleagues review how sweet Osmanthus forms flower buds and how flowering differs between year-round and autumn-flowering groups. They discuss the roles of temperature, plant hormones and flowering-related genes. The article also places the plant in a long Chinese tradition of cultivation, fragrance and ornamental use.

This helps explain the plant’s horticultural importance and how growers might manage flowering.

Tong and colleagues describe ‘Cai Ye Gui’, a sweet Osmanthus cultivar selected for its variegated foliage. Their comparisons found a more compact plant with smaller leaves than the green-leaved seedlings used as controls. The report also records the species’ fragrant flowers and its established culinary and traditional uses.

Its main contribution is the description and cultivation of an ornamental variety.

Shi and colleagues begin with traditional Chinese uses of sweet Osmanthus flowers for phlegm and digestive complaints. They then test a flower extract and verbascoside, one of its constituents, in cultured cells and a chemically induced mouse model of intestinal inflammation. The abstract reports reduced inflammatory signalling in cells and improvements in several disease measures in mice.

Hung and colleagues investigated an ethanol extract of Osmanthus flowers in an experimental mouse model of allergic airway inflammation. The study examined antioxidant activity and inflammation, reporting protective effects under its experimental conditions. Traditional uses of the flowers supplied background for the research question.

Zhou and colleagues studied flower material remaining after essential-oil extraction. They isolated six flavonoids and one phenylethanoid glycoside, including quercetin, kaempferol and verbascoside. Several compounds scavenged free radicals in a laboratory assay, and kaempferol showed the strongest anti-inflammatory activity among the compounds tested. Some compounds were also investigated in cancer-cell assays.