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Nerium delerium

Dear Pink Nerium,

Your lovely flowers are casting shadows on the concrete in the morning sunlight.

When I was a kid my Grandpa would take us on long walks around the neighborhood. We would start our walks down the long driveway lined with oleander trees. He told us that the trees were poinsonous, but I couldn't believe it because they had so many delicate flowers that sparkled in the sunlight. They are very popular for ornamental gardening because they are hardy, can stand drought and even a light frost, and the deer don't eat them because, well, they're poisonous.

Nerium oleander is an evergreen shrub or small tree in the dogbane family Apocynaceae, toxic in all its parts. It is the only species currently classified in the genus Nerium. It is most commonly known as oleander, from its superficial resemblance to the unrelated olive Olea. It is so widely cultivated that no precise region of origin has been identified, though southwest Asia has been suggested. The ancient city of Volubilis in Morocco may have taken its name from the Berber name oualilt for the flower. Oleander is one of the most poisonous of commonly grown garden plants.

But some creatures simply work around the toxins - Caterpillars of the polka-dot wasp moth (Syntomeida epilais) feed specifically on oleanders and survive by eating only the pulp surrounding the leaf-veins, avoiding the fibers. Ca-razy!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerium

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