Bitter Oleander

The leaves, bark and seeds are used medicinally for dysentry. Wood is white, soft and even grained, used for carving, turning and for light furnitures.

The bark and roots are used as a remedy for fever and dysentery.

Shrub or tree; bark smooth, pale purplish, branches drooping, pubescent or glabrous. Leaves ovate, elliptic oblong or elliptic, 10-20 x 5-10 cm, base obtuse rounded or acute, rarely unequal, acute or acuminate at the apex or sinuate, membranous, sub-coriaceous with 10-16 pairs of lateral nerves, glabrous or somewhat pubescent beneath, dark green above, paler beneath, subsessile or sessile, petiole c. 2 mm long. Inflorescence a terminal, corymbose, many flowered cymes, 7-15 cm across, pedicel variable in length, upto 1.25 cm long, bracts small, linear acute, pubescent or ciliate, c. 2.5 cm long. Flower white or creamy 2.5-5 cm across, puberulous. Calyx 2-3.5 mm long, divided nearly to the base, lobes unequal, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, pubescent ciliate. Corolla tube selender, puberulous outside, hairy within, 8-12 mm long, lobes equalling the tube, oblong, rounded, overlapping to the right in bud. Style short, stigma oblong. Follicle, 20-40 x 0.5-1 cm, pendulous, glabrous, often slightly curved and dotted. Seeds c. 1.25 cm long, linear oblong, light brown, minutely rugose.

Shrubs or trees to 10 m tall. Trunk to 20 cm in diam.; branchlets with whitish, dotlike lenticels. Petiole 1-5 mm, grooved, glandular inside groove; leaf blade ovate or elliptic, 10-24 X 4-11.5 cm, membranous, pubescent, sometimes densely so abaxially, base rounded, apex acute or obtuse; lateral veins 10-15 pairs. Cymes 5-8 cm; peduncle 1-2 cm. Pedicel 0.3-3 cm. Sepals elliptic to linear, 2-12 mm. Corolla white, pubescent, tube 0.9-1.9 cm; lobes oblong, 1-3 cm. Anthers included, narrowly ovate, base rounded. Follicles linear, 20-43 X 0.5-1.5 cm, with whitish, dotlike lenticels. Seeds 0.9-1.6 cm, coma 2.5-4.5 cm. Fl. Apr-Jul, fr. Jun-Dec. 2n = 22.

Tropical Himalaya, India, Burma, Indo-China, Malaya.

Distribution: Tropical Himalayas. from Chenab westward, ascending to 3,500 ft throughout India, Travencore, Malacca, Pakistan (Punjab) and Kashmir.

S Yunnan; cultivated in S Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan [Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam; Africa]

100-1500 m

Fl.Per.: May-June.

Montane forests; 500-1000 m.

Chonemorpha antidysenterica (Roth) G. Don; Echites antidysenterica Roth, not (Linnaeus) Roxburgh ex Fleming; E. pubescens Buchanan-Hamilton, not Willdenow ex Roemer & Schultes; Holarrhena antidysenterica Roth; H. codaga G. Don; H. malaccensis Wight; H. villosa Aiton ex Loudon.

pubescens: pubescent, with soft short hairs

Shrub or small tree with milky latex. Leaves opposite, broadly elliptic to ovate, sparsely to densely hairy, glossy dark green above paler below. Flowers in dense, many-flowered, axillary heads, white, sweetly scented; calyces and flower stalks densely hairy; corolla lobes overlapping to the right. Fruit in paired, long slender follicles, up to 30 cm, conpicuously dotted with lenticels. Seeds with long silky hairs to aid dispersal by wind.

DRC, Kenya, Tanzania to Mpumalanga, South Africa

Holarrhena pubescens is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae. It is native to central and southern Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, Indochina, and parts of China. In Cambodia, it is called /tɨk dɑh kʰlaː thɔm/ ទឹកដោះខ្លាធំ big tiger milk or /kʰlaɛɲ kŭəŋ/ ខ្លែងគង់ invulnerable kite. These seeds are sold as indraja (इनद्राजा) for Ayurvedic medicine in India.