Thursday, January 29, 2015

Oleander: Poisonous plant

At the corner of my garden, is a huge Oleander bush. I sing the Chinese song, "Lu Bian De Ye Hua bu yaw Cai." Road side wild flowers do not pluck. This is a grown plant, not wild, and looks is deceiving. The whole oleander plant is poisonous right down to the nectar. It is said that even the smoke from burning the plant is toxic .













These Nerium Oleander look so beautiful, yet they are so deadly. All parts of this plant is highly toxic.
There is a folk story where a good but not very beautiful woman who was bullied by her husband. She tolerated his abuses until he became unfaithful and planned to divorce her. She made kebabs for husband. She used Oleander stems to skewer the bits of meat before barbecuing the kebabs. The unsuspecting man ate the kebabs and died straight away.
The moral of the story is do not abuse the person who loves you, even nature will not approve your actions.

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There were cases of oleander poisoning in California when people unknowingly cut branches to use when cooking hot dogs over a bon fire. The drove the sap out into the meat. POW!







2 comments:

Unknown said...

Gorgeous!

Melbourne Australia Photos said...

We were warned as children against this plant, too, Ann. It is so pretty though. Sad story about the abused wife...
Thank you for joining Floral Friday Fotos and hope to see more of your work in the weeks to come.