Oleander

“ There are but few species, which are natives from the Mediterranean region through southern Asia to Japan. The common oleander of cultivation is N, oleander, native to the Mediterranean region; while N. odorum, a sweet-scented form, comes from the East Indies. The plant is said to be more or less poisonous, especially the leaves. N. oleander rises to a height of eight or ten feet; the leaves are thick and leathery, evergreen; the plant blooms profusely, bearing a myriad of white or pink blossoms. In warm countries it is a favorite shrub, in cooler lands a favorite house-plant. ”

“ Wild oleander mingles rosy blossoms with bushes of living gold like tall growths of double buttercups, and at length the cooler regions [59] show the familiar ferns, violets, and primroses of the temperate zone. ”

“ The oleander has long been cultivated in greenhouses in England, being, as Gerard says, "a small shrub of a gallant shewe"; numerous varieties, differing in the colour of their flowers, which are often double, have been introduced. ”

“ Nerium oleander.—The oleander is a common house plant throughout a large portion of the United States. It grows freely out of doors in the Southern and Western States, and has probably escaped from cultivation in some places. It grows wild in northern Mexico. ”

“ The gardener, after leading them through the garden and grounds, took them into the greenhouse to notice some curious plants, such as the aloe, that blossoms only once in a century; the beautiful oleander, a native of Spain and Italy, which thrives in British greenhouses; the prickly pear, which is without a stem, the leaves growing out of each other ”

“ An oleander, the only one of your seeds that prospered in this climate, grows there; and the name is now some week or ten days applied and published. ADELAIDE ROAD leads also into the bush, to the banana patch, and by a second bifurcation over the left branch of the stream to the plateau and the right hand of the gorges. In short, it leads to all sorts of good, and is, besides, in itself a pretty winding path, bound downhill among big woods to the margin of the stream. ”

“ The oleander is not mentioned in the Bible, but it grows so abundantly on the shores of the Lake of Galilee that it has some claim to be admitted into our collection.
We may grow our own date plants if we will; the seeds germinate very freely at any season if kept warm and in moist soil. The leaf does not divide into leaflets and become a true palm leaf until the plant is five or six years old. If we desire a small palm leaf that will at once fit into our book, any florist will be able to supply a spray of Cocos veitchii, a small and delicate species just fitted for the purpose. ”

“ Old plants of oleander may easily be renewed when they have become so large as to be unwieldy, or have outgrown the space that can be given up to them. Cut away all the branches to within four or five inches of the main stalk, leaving nothing but a mass of stubs. In a very short time new branches will be sent out. There will be so many of them that it will be necessary to remove the larger share of them. If this pruning is done in early spring, when the plant is brought from cold storage, the new growth ought to bear a crop of flowers in late summer. ”

“ Or sometimes one has to pass through vast plains, where neglect and desolation have, in the exuberance of nature, assumed the appearance of luxuriant cultivation. Few artificial pastures could equal the natural beds of oleander that are sometimes found here stretching far away till lost behind the crags of a ravine ”

“ Du. olie, AS. ele, n., ‘oil.’ Lat. oleum, ‘oil,’ passed into HG. before the 8th. cent. Goth. adopted the term probably even half a century earlier from the Lat., the only assumption that can explain the remarkable Goth. form alêw. The approximate source of E. oil, MidE. oile, is OFr. oil, which with its Rom. cognates. (ModFr. huile) are also based on Lat. oleum.
Oleander, m., ‘oleander, rose-bay,’ first occurs in early ModHG., from the equiv. Fr. oléandre, or rather Ital. oleandro.
Olive, f., ‘olive,’ from MidHG. olîve, f. and m., from Lat. oliva. ”

“ Oleágine, a kind of precious stone of an oylie colour. Also a kinde of yellow Grape.
Oleándro, the weede Oleander. Also a Daffadounedillie. Also a Rose-Bay-tree.
Oleáre, to smell, to sent, to sauour.
Oleário, a place where oyle is made, kept, or sold. Also an oyle-man.
Oleástro, a wilde Oliue-tree. Also a kind of Boxe-tree. Also an oyle-colour. ”

“ Oil is another common substance in plants, and it is made from the materials of starch which, as we know, are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; cotton-seed oil, olive oil, and castor oil we are all familiar with.
All nuts contain a great deal of oil, and the skin of a fresh-picked orange is so full of it that it runs down our fingers when we cut the orange.
All the things in a plant—starch, sugar, oils, spices, wood, bark—everything is made by the wonderful protoplasm in the cells. ”

“ Besides the general constituents of a ligneous vegetation, the Eucalyptus contains a gum-resin, a volatile acid, and a peculiar volatile oil. The finest forests, Eucalyptus amygdalina, extend inland about one hundred miles, beyond which the scrub species prevail. When by vicissitude of season the seaward species are poor in volatile oil, then the scrub is rich, and vice versâ. The extent of scrub and forest in the three colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia is so great that the quantity of oil therein contained is estimated at 96,877,440,000 gallons. ”

“ Lime, abounding phosphates, magnesia, with an abundance of silicates of alum and mercury, and a sufficiency of potash and soda, are the chemical and physical requisites which this tree will find most advantageous to its development, and cause it to produce abundantly, and, provided other circumstances are equal, give the very best oil. It is seen that the olive will flourish wherever its roots will penetrate easily, and there is no deficiency of lime and alkali, such as a loose soil of rocky clay, or sand of volcanic or granite formation. ”

“ On the other hand, the oils are extremely inert substances, and undergo chemical changes very slowly; so that there is no likelihood of their being converted into carbonic acid, or any other substance which may be useful to the plant; and as they contain no nitrogen, and consist only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, they can yield only those elements of which the plant can easily obtain an unlimited supply. I can conceive cases in which the oil might possibly produce some mechanical effect on the soil, but none in which it could act as a manure, in the proper sense of the term. ”

“ The sap [Pg 162] which has thus risen is the juice of the earth in which the plant grows, containing several earthy salts and vegetable extract drawn from the manure or decaying vegetation contained in the mould, together with carbonic acid dissolved in the fluid; this carbonic acid is changed by the sun's rays as well as that which was contained in the air, and the carbon uniting with the watery part of the sap, forms the green substance before alluded to, called chlorophyll, which is the green colouring matter of all plants, and is the basis of the wood. ”

“ The Fat Oil of Plants is particularly found in kernels, seeds, and some fruits; some kernels contain such a vast quantity thereof, that, on being very slightly bruised in a mortar, they discharge it in great abundance. Sweet and bitter Almonds, Walnuts, and Lint-seed, are all of this kind; and require no other management but to be pounded and pressed, to make them yield a great deal of Oil. But there are others more meagre, that being ground produce an almost dry flower. ”

“ It sometimes happens that different parts of the same plant contain different oils; the orange, for example, furnishes three different oils, one of which resides in the flowers, another in the leaves, and a third in the skin or epidermis of the fruit. The quantity of oil varies not only with the species, but also in the same plant, with the soil, and especially the climate; thus in hot countries it is generated most profusely. ”

“ We have seen that all the elements which are necessary to the production of the woody fibre, and of the other organic parts of the plant, may be derived either from the air, from the carbonic acid and watery vapour taken in by the leaves, or from the soil, through the medium of the roots. In the air, however, only rare particles of inorganic or earthy matter are known to float, and these in a solid form, so as to be unable to enter by the leaves; the earthy matter which constitutes the ash, therefore, must be all derived from the soil. ”

“ In the conversion of wood into humus, oxygen is absorbed, and combining with the carbon, it is evolved as carbonic acid. Of course we have the peculiar condition of vitality to modify the effect, and we have, too, in this class of plants, the existence of a larger quantity of nitrogen than is found in any other vegetating substance.
These few sketches of remarkable phenomena connected with vegetation are intended to show merely the operations of the physical powers of the universe, so far as we know them, upon these particular forms of organization. ”

“ The lead oleate made by the interaction of hot solution of soap and lead acetate, thoroughly washed with hot water, and freed from water by working the precipitated oleate on a hot tile, is much to be preferred to the lead plaster made by the present official process. The time-honored method of boiling litharge, olive oil, and water is for the requirements of the pharmacists most tedious and unsatisfactory. ”

“ The best oil comes from the first crushing, and the pulp is afterwards heated, when a second quality of oil is obtained. Olive trees grow very slowly, and do not fruit for seven years after they are planted. But they live a hundred years, and bear more olives every season. ”

“ Water is an actual necessity to the plant not only as a direct food and food-solvent, but as the vehicle of important inorganic materials. The hydrogen, too, of the organic compounds is obtained from the decomposition of the water which permeates every part of the plant, and is derived by it from the soil and from the aqueous vapour in the atmosphere. The chief chemical substances of which vegetable protoplasm is constituted are six, viz, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, phosphorous, and sulphur. ”

“ Whatever may be the cause of this gradient in alkalinity, it is an obvious fact that the degree of alkalinity exerts a very powerful influence upon the vegetation. Studies are now in progress that will probably throw considerable light upon the power of certain species of plants and animals to adjust themselves to this varying chemical relation. In many of the more strongly saline waters scarcely any vegetation appears, although the beach may be well clothed with rushes, sedges and salt-grasses. ”

“ The olive tree prefers hills and elevated places, does not grow well in valley lands, low and wet, or where water stands. Its fruit corresponds to the soil where it is planted; in rich and moist land it gives a heavy and fatty oil; in the warm and dry soils the oil will be finer ”

“ He told me that some specimens of it, which he had collected and brought home, were treated by his brother, a professed mineralogist, as specimens of carboniferous limestone. The formation of oolites, again, may be studied at the present time. When a bed of calcareous sand, formed by the wearing down of shells or corals, is raised above the sea-level, and is penetrated by rain-water charged with carbonic acid, this, dissolving the carbonate of lime of the surface-layer, deposits it again around the grains of the deeper layers, which it invests with concentric coats. ”

“ Included in this group are several different kinds of compounds which have similar physical properties, and which, in general, belong to the type of organic compounds known as esters, i.e., alcoholic salts of organic acids. The terms "oil," "fat," and "wax," are generally applied more or less indiscriminately to any substance which has a greasy feeling to the touch and which does not mix with, but floats on, water. There are many oils which are of mineral origin which are entirely different in composition from natural fats. These have no relation to plant life and will not be considered here. ”

“ The plant contains all the primitive bodies; carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. The carbon forms the principal mass, and almost alone constitutes its solid parts. The nitrogen is only present in small quantity, being, as it were, a trace only of the future animal kingdom.
1365. In the plant all the elements are also active, as the æther, which, through the gravitation of the root, strives towards the middle point or centre of the earth. The light, which imparts the general polarity and decomposition, as well as produces colours. ”

“ Organic Nitrogen in the Soil.—With the exception of the small quantities of nitric acid added to the soil directly by rain water, the whole of the supply of this substance is derived from the products of the oxidation of nitrogenous bodies. These products are either stored as the results of past nitrification or are formed synchronously with their consumption by the growing 452plant. Nitrogenous compounds are present as organic vegetable or animal remains and as humus. ”

“ And, as these small quantities of the more important substances are capable of supplying the wants of the plant, it must be obvious that a very small fraction of the silica, oxide of iron, and alumina, which the soils contain, would afford to it the whole quantity of these substances it requires, and that the remainder must have some other functions to perform.
The soil must be considered not merely as the source of the inorganic food of plants, for it has to act also as a support for them while growing, and to retain a sufficient quantity of moisture to support their life ”