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Erect, woody, poisonous shrub up to 2 m, branching mainly from base, spineless. Leaves lanceolate, 50-150 x 15-25 mm, opposite to whorled, leathery. Flowers in lax, terminal cymes. Corolla salver-shaped, 30-50 mm diam., tube cylindrical, abruptly widened around middle, lobes spreading, 15-20 mm long, pink, red or white, with laciniate corolline corona attached to base of lobes. Shrub or small tree, 1-4 m high. Leaves ternate; lamina coriaceous, narrowly elliptic, 50-210 x 10-35 mm, acuminate or acute at apex, cuneate at base; petioles 3-10 mm long. Inflorescence terminal or axillary, thyrsoid, lax. Flowers actinomorphic, ornamental. Calyx free, narrowly triangular to narrowly ovate. Corolla showy, white, pink to wine-red, yellow or salmon; tube infundibuliform; lobes in bud overlapping to right, obovate, rounded, entire; corona of 5 truncate epipetalous parts, 3-8-lobed. Stamens 5; filaments short; anthers 4-locular, narrowly triangular, fertile at sagittate base, introrse, with filiform apical appendages. Ovary broadly ovoid. Follicles 2, narrowly oblong. Seeds oblong with 9-12 mm long tuft of hairs at truncate apex. Erect, woody, poisonous shrub, up to 2 m tall, branching mainly from base, spineless. Leaves lanceolate, 50-150 x 15-25 mm, opposite to whorled, leathery, transversely feather-veined. Flowers in lax, terminal cymes. Corolla salver-shaped, 30-50 mm diam., tube cylindrical, abruptly widened around middle, lobes spreading, 15-20 mm long, pink, red or white, with laciniate, corolline corona attached to base of lobes.
Nerium oleander is a shrub native to the Mediterranean region which has been introduced as an ornamental to the tropics and subtropics worldwide. It is reported as being present since the late 1800s in North America and the Caribbean and reported from Central America, South America and Oceania since the early 1900s (Missouri Botanical Garden, 2020; Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, 2020). The spread of N. oleander has occurred mainly through its use as an ornamental and landscape species; it has naturalized in various countries in Oceania, mainly by establishing itself in riparian habitats (PIER, 2018). It is reported as occasionally escaping from cultivation in tropical America.