POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 257 



name Rhododaphne and others Nerion hath not been so happie yet as to 

 find so much as a name in Latine. A straunge and marvellous qualitie 

 of this plant : the leaves are a very poison to all foure-footed beasts ; 

 and yet they serve man as a preservative and counterpoyson against 

 serpents if they be taken in wine, with Rue among. Also sheepe and 

 goats if they chance to drinke of the water wherein those leaves lay 

 soaked, will (by reports) thereupon die." The plant is still to be seen, 

 says Helm, in Greece and Italy as oleander or rose -laurel, not only 

 adorning gardens, but fringing the roads and dry beds of rivers with its 

 fragrant rose-like blooms, and the faint brilliancy of its long evergreen 

 leaves. (Nairne). 



In describing the scent of the flowers, Balfour says that it perfumes 

 the air for a distance around, and has the odour of almonds. The most 

 penetrating odour is that of the double-pink variety, as compared with 

 the odour of the rest of the variously-coloured flowers, and resembles a 

 mixture of the odour of bitter almond and otto of roses, I think. 

 POISONOUS PROPERTIES. 



All the ancient and modern Hindu writers agree in ascribing poisonous 

 properties to this plant. Two varieties are described in each of the 

 following works; — (1) Bhav-Prakash (Purva-khanda, Part I, Shi. 

 79-80) ; (2) Madanpal Nighant. (Shi. 337-338) ; (3) and (4) Dhan- 

 vantari and Ra,j-Nighant (p. 134, Anandashram Edition 1896, 

 Poona). The following works describe five varieties — red, white, pink, 

 yellow, and dark red : — (1) Nighant-Ratnakar (Vol. I, p. 102, 1867, 

 Bombay) ; (2) Nighant-Prakash (p. 52, Guna-Dosha, 1837, Bombay). 

 All the works describe the several species as the " killer of horses." In 

 medicine, used externally, the root and bark are considered useful 

 in skin-diseases and leprosy. On what authority Dalzell and Gibson call 

 it a native of Arabia (Aden), it is not easy to understand . (See Supple- 

 ment to the Bombay Flora, 1861, p. 52). English and Continental 

 Botanists have from time to time dwelt on the poisonous effects the plant 

 has on men and the lower animals. The stem, root, leaves, and flowers 

 are all more or less very deadly. The following remarks of Lindley 

 may be usefully quoted here ; — u Although little suspected oleander is a 

 formidable poison. A decoction of its leaves forms a wash, employed 

 in the south of Europe to destroy cutaneous vermin ; and its powdered 

 wood and bark constitute at Nice the basis of an efficacious rat-poison. 



