Nerium

Common Name : Nerium

Botanical Name : Nerium oleander

Theophrastus in his Enquiries into Plants of ca. 300 BCE described among plants that affect the mind a shrub he called onotheras, which modern editors render oleander; "the root of onotheras [oleander] administered in wine," he alleges, "makes the temper gentler and more cheerful".The plant has a leaf like that of the almond, but smaller, and the flower is red like a rose. The plant itself (which loves hilly country) forms a large bush; the root is red and large, and, if this is dried, it gives off a fragrance like wine.
Nerium oleander is an evergreen shrub or small tree in the dogbane family Apocynaceae, toxic in all its parts. It is the only species currently classified in the genus Nerium. It is most commonly known as oleander, from its superficial resemblance to the unrelated olive Olea.
Oleander grows to 2–6 m (6.6–20 ft) tall, with erect stems that splay outward as they mature; first-year stems have a glaucous bloom, while mature stems have a grayish bark. The leavesare in pairs or whorls of three, thick and leathery, dark-green, narrow lanceolate, 5–21 cm (2.0–8.3 in) long and 1–3.5 cm (0.39–1.4 in) broad, and with an entire margin. The flower grow in clusters at the end of each branch; they are white, pink to red, 2.5 –5 cm (0.98–2.0 in) diameter, with a deeply 5-lobed fringed corolla round the central corolla tube. They are often, but not always, sweet-scented. The fruit is a long narrow capsule 5– 23 cm (2.0– 9.1 in) long, which splits open at maturity to release numerous downy seeds.

Willa Cather, in her book The Song of the Lark, mentions oleander in the following such as:
This morning Thea saw to her delight that the two oleander trees, one white and one red, had been brought up from their winter quarters in the cellar. There is hardly a German family in the most arid parts of Utah, New Mex­ico, Arizona, but has its oleander trees. They may strive to avert the day, but they grapple with the tub at last.