Trees & Plants

Oleander

Kaneeru

Nerium oleander L.

Grown as an ornamental plant. All parts of the plant are highly 6 toxic to humans, pets, livestock and birds due to the presence of cardiac glycosides, mainly oleandrin. Ingestion causes nausea, vomiting, cardiac arrhythmias, hypotension and death. The sap has been used as rat po

Details

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uses: All parts of the plant are highly 6 toxic to humans, pets, livestock and birds due to the presence of cardiac glycosides, mainly oleandrin. Ingestion causes nausea, vomiting, cardiac arrhythmias, hypotension and death. The sap has been used as rat poison. The roots are useful in cardiac asthma, strangury, renal and vesical calculi, chronic stomachalgia, arthralgia, leprosy, pruritus and ulcers.
family: Apocynaceae
synonym: Nerium indicum Mill., Nerium odorum Sol.
description: Evergreen shrubs, stem × with milky juice. Leaves 10-15 1-2 cm, linear-lanceolate, tapering at both ends, acuminate, thick coriaceous, midrib prominent, nerves numerous; petiole 5-7.5 mm long. Flowers white, pink or dark red, single or double, fragrant, 3-4 cm across, peduncle and pedicel hairy. Calyx ca. 6 mm long, divided into 5 linear, acute lobes, hairy with gland at the base inside. Corolla tube 1.8 cm long, hairy within, throat narrow, ending in five twisted petals, tips rounded, corona of 5 scales near the throat of the corolla, cleft into 4-7 linear segments. Stamen included, filament short, anthers connivent and adherent to stigma, connectives hairy, produced upward into long thread-like hairy appendages. Ovary with two distinct carpels, style filiform; × stigma two lobed. Fruit 12-20 0.7 cm long.
native range: Eastern Mediterranean basin and Southeast Asia
distribution: In the tropics. Also, cultivated elsewhere
english names: Oleander · Common oleander · Indian oleander
flowering fruiting: November - May
occurrence maldives: Grown as an ornamental plant.