A pocynee—A nisontia. 299 
A. salicifolia has a less erect habit, smaller flowers, and 
lanceolate leaves; and A. ciliata linear leaves. 
3. APOCYNUM. 
Erect perennial herbs with tough fibrous bark. Leaves 
opposite, mucronate. Flowers cymose, on axillary or terminal 
peduncles. Corolla campanulate, bearing five triangular 
appendages at the mouth of the tube. Fruit of two slender 
follicles; seeds plumose at one end. There are three North 
American and one South European species. The name is a 
compound of dd, from, and xtwv, a dog, supposed to be 
poisonous to dogs, whence the English name Dogbane. 
1. A. androsemifolium.  Fly-trap.—A branching herb 
from 1 to 2 feet high with ovate glabrous petiolate leaves and 
small pale red flowers in loose cymes. Corolla-tube much 
longer than the calyx-lobes. An interesting and curious 
plant remarkable for the 
irritability of the gluti- 
nous throat-appendages, 
which collapse upon in- 
truding insects and retain 
them prisoners. A 
native of North America, 
flowering towards the end 
of Summer. 
A. cannabinumn, 
Indian Hemp, is a vari- 
able species having 
several synonyms. The 
flowers are greenish 
white, and the corolla- 
tube does not exceed the 
calyx-lobes. A. Venétwm 
is the European species. 
The Oleander, Nériwm 
Oleander (fig. 168), is 
really a greenhouse plant 
with us, though it will exist in the open air in the South-west 
of England if protected in Winter. It may be well to mention 
that this plant, so commonly seen in windows, is excessively 
poisonous. There are many handsome double-flowered varie- 
ties, Parechites Thunbérgii, better known in gardens under 
Fig. 168. Nerium Oleander floribus plenis. 
