The oleander is a versatile plant that thrives almost everywhere, from the remote ancient ruins of Greece to the busy highways of the U.S. The oleander actually originated from Mediterranean regions such as Portugal and Morocco, and are generally found in warm tropical areas of the world. If you are unsure what an oleander plant looks like, walk along Oak Street near the parking lot of the New Gym at DHS. There is a 100 meter stretch of oleander plants around 2-3 meters high, and have innumerable pink, white, and red flowers. You simply can't miss it. Also, if you look outside the window when travelling on highways, all those plants in the area between the two pathways are oleander plants, and when you speed past them, they look like a whirlwind of bright colors. Of course, you could also look at the whole plant picture on this webpage.

If you look carefully at the picture of the leaves, you could see the very noticeable midrib, and the leaves could be 10-22 cm long and 2.5 cm wide. The bark is also grayish or greenish in color, as seen in this website. If you examine the picture of the flowers, you could see the pink colors and long petals. Throughout the summer and fall, you could see the fruit of the oleander, which is a capsule 10-12 cm long and 6-8 mm in diameter. The fruit is brownish in color, and the capsule contains seeds which consists of tufts of brown hairs. Generally, reproduction of these plants is done through wind pollination. As you could probably guess, the oleander doesn't need lots of water to thrive. The plant likes sunny conditions and drought-like conditions, although less flowers would be produced.

Now, there are some important things you need to know about these plants. If you have any common sense or sanctity, you wouldn't eat the leaves of the plant. Why? Well, obviously you would die because the oleandrin and nerinne toxins would wreck your heart and cause serious damage to your gastrointestinal system. However, you need to eat about 20 leaves to feel really bad. If you don't believe me, many of Alexander the Great's horses died from drinking water poisoned with oleander by retreating enemy forces. Also, animals don't even bother with the oleander. As an interesting fact, there are some types of buttflies which could suck the nectar of the oleander and store them in specialized cells. When birds eat the butterfly, they would get extremely sick and never eat them again. Although oleander plants are poisonous, there are actually medicinal uses of it. In 1966, Doctor Ozel of Turkey patented Anvirzel, a remedy made with oleander that could fight Hepatitis C, HIV, and maybe even cancer since it stimulates the immune system. Basically, these plants are used to brighten up the landscape and shouldn't be ingested.