NERIUM ODORUM. Solander. Oleander.
Kaner, Kharuba, . HIND. Arali, TAM.
Jovana arali, . MALEAL. Ghenneru kusturi Khar-zahra, . PERS. patte, . . . TEL, Karavera, . SANSK. Gandera, . TRANS-INDUS.
A sweet-scented oleander, grows throughout India, Sind, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Siwalik Hills, and the Himalaya, and is often confounded with the N. oleander. Its varieties have flowers of a red, crimson, and rose colour, and are double and single. The root and root-bark are used medicinally, but need great .care, as they are virulently poisonous. The leaves also are used. In the Dekhan the double red and white grow wild on the banks of rivers, bearing both white and red flowers ; and by budding the red colour on the opposite one in several parts of the same stalk, a very pretty appearance may he given to the shrub. Amongst Hindus its flowers are sacred to Siva. The single white is called in Hindi safaid-kurpud, the single rose-coloured lal kurpud, and the beautiful large double rose variety is called padma-kurpud. The yellow congener is called the exile, and was introduced from America. The root contains a yellow poisonous resin, tannic acid, wax, and sugar, but no alcoholoid or volatile poison. The bark and flowers contain the same poisonous resin, which is most abundant in the liber or inner bark ; it is very soluble in carbonate of soda, and, though not volatile, is carried over mechanically when the plant is distilled with water. The root is so
frequently resorted to for the purpose of self destruction by the women of India when tormented with jealousy, that it is proverbial among the females of the hills, when quarrelling, to bid their opponent go and cat of the root of Kaner. A man about 35 years old swallowed an ounce of the expressed juice, and immediately fell senseless on the floor. He did not recover, even by vigorous treatment, from a state of collapse, under 40 hours, and during that time had constant spasmodic seizures of the whole body. Camels eat it, but nearly all die. The stalks are said to be used as hookah tubes. The powder of the dried leaves is given in colic, and used as an errhine. A wash is made from the bark, which is used in itch and for destroying vermin. Externally the leaves and bark have been used (and sometimes even inter nally) as a remedy in herpes and itch. The rasped wood is employed as ratsbane. The wood itself is used by some eastern nations as a material for gunpowder charcoal.—Roxb. ; Powell ; Eng. Cyc. ; Irvine ; Ainslie • Ilonig. ; O'Sh. ; Mason.