Fig. 54. NEHICM OLEANDER. 



POISONOUS PLANTS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THERE are families of plants, as there are races of men, 

 whose nature is marked by a certain harshness and 

 malignity, and whose function it is to prevent this 

 world from being too pleasant a place. Among the 

 most dangerous orders is that to which the Oleander 

 (Nerium) belongs. The plant itself is poisonous, both 

 flower and leaf and bark and wood. To use the 

 wood as a meat skewer may lead to fatal results. 

 Closely related is the deadly Ordeal Tree (Tanghinia 

 reneni/era) of Madagascar, most poisonous of plants : 

 a seed the size of an almond suffices to kill twenty 

 people. 



The Oleander, French Laurier-rose, grows wild in 

 the torrent beds as you approach Genoa, and it 

 abounds in a valley close to St. Raphael, which is 

 called La Valise des Lauriers-roses ;* in Palestine also 

 " it flourishes abundantly by the water-courses, and 

 lines every valley." It is possible that the Oleander 

 is intended by the word translated Willow in the 

 Old Testament. It may have been on this flowering 



* Camporosso (that is, Redfield) near Bordighera, is supposed to take 

 its name from the abundance of this plant growing in the bed of the river 

 Nervia, on which the town is situated. The Oleander is wild also in the 

 Mortola valley. T. H. 



