[Ancient Greek name for oleander, perhaps from neros, moist or fresh, alluding to habitat and/or evergreen habit]

David E. Lemke

Shrubs or small trees; latex clear. Stems erect, unarmed, glabrous or eglandular-pubescent especially on younger growth. Leaves persistent, whorled or occasionally opposite, petiolate; stipular colleters intrapetiolar; laminar colleters absent. Inflorescences terminal, thyrsiform, pedunculate. Flowers: calycine colleters present; corolla white, pink, red, purple, or rarely orange-pink, funnelform, aestivation dextrorse; corolline corona lacerate; androecium and gynoecium not united into a gynostegium; stamens inserted at top of corolla tube; anthers connivent, adherent to stigma, connectives appendiculate, elongate pubescent appendages intertwined, locules 4; pollen free, not massed into pollinia, translators absent; nectaries absent. Fruits follicles, solitary or paired, erect, reddish brown, slender, terete or slightly compressed, truncate, surface striate, glabrous. Seeds oblong, slightly flattened, not winged, not beaked, comose, not arillate. x = 11.

Species 1: introduced; Eurasia, Africa; introduced also nearly worldwide.

Lower Taxon

• Nerium oleander Linnaeus