Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Nerium oleander

common oleander, oleander
Leaves

petiole 2–7 mm, sparsely pubescent or glabrous;

blade oblong-lanceolate, 2–15(–30) × 0.5–2.5(–3.5) cm, coriaceous, base cuneate, margins revolute, apex acuminate, surfaces pubescent abaxially, very sparsely pubescent or glabrous adaxially.
Peduncles

3–6 cm, sparsely pubescent.
Pedicels

5–8 mm, pubescent.
Flowers

calyx lobes lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 5–7 mm, pubescent;

corolla glabrous abaxially, eglandular-pubescent adaxially, tube 8–12 × 2–3 mm, throat 5–10 × 4–7 mm, lobes spreading, obliquely obovate, 15–25 × 10–20 mm.
Seeds

7–10 × 1.5–2 mm, densely pubescent.
Follicles

8–15 × 1–1.5 cm.
2n

= 22.

Nerium oleander
Phenology Flowering spring–summer; fruiting summer–fall.
Habitat Disturbed areas, roadsides, old homesites.
Elevation 0–600 m. (0–2000 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; AZ; CA; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX; Eurasia; Africa; widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions [Introduced in North America]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Nerium oleander is cultivated in warmer parts of the United States and has become sporadically naturalized from North Carolina to Florida and Texas, and in Arizona and California. The plant is widely recognized as one of the most poisonous cultivated species due to the presence of cardiac glycosides that can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, cardiac arrhythmia, and potassium imbalance (V. Bandara et al. 2010), although the number of human fatalities resulting from accidental ingestion of leaves and/or flowers is surprisingly small (S. D. Langford and P. J. Boor 1996).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 14.
Parent taxa Apocynaceae > Nerium
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 209. (1753)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers