OLEANDER is the common name for the shrub known to botanists as JVerium Oleander. It is a native of the Mediterranean and Levant, and is characterized by its tall shrubby habit and its thick lance-shaped opposite leaves, which exude a milky juice when punctured. The flowers are borne in terminal clusters, and are like those of the common periwinkle (Vinca), but are of a rose colour, rarely white, and the throat or upper edge of the tube of the corolla is occupied by outgrowths in the form of lobed and fringed petal-like scales. The hairy anthers adhere to the thickened stigma. The fruit or seed-vessel consists of two long pods, which, bursting along one edge, liberate a number of seeds, each of which is provided with a tuft of silky hairs like thistle down at the upper end. The genus belongs to the family of Apo- cynaceae, a family that, as is usual where the juice has a milky appearance, is marked by its poisonous properties. Cases are recorded by Lindley of children poisoned by the flowers. The same author also narrates how . in the course of the Peninsular War some French soldiers died in consequence of employing skewers made from freshly-cut twigs of oleander for roasting their meat. The oleander was known to the Greeks under three names, viz., rhododendron, nerion, and rhododaphne, and is well described by Pliny (xvi. 20), who mentions its rose-like flowers and poisonous qualities, at the same time stating that it was considered serviceable as a remedy against snake-bite. The modern Greeks still know the plant as ροδοδάφνη, although in a figure in the Rinuccini MSS. of Dioscorides a plant is represented under this name, which, however, has rather the appearance of a willow herb, Bpilobium. The oleander has long been cultivated in greenhouses in England, ...

OLEARIUS, Adam, a German traveller whose true name was Oelschläger, was born at Aschersleben near Magdeburg in 1600, and died at Gottorp 22d February 1671. After studying at Leipsic he became librarian and court mathematician to Duke Frederick III. of Holstein-Gottorp, and in 1633 he was appointed secretary to the ambassadors Philip Crusius and Otto Briiggemann or Brugman sent by the duke to Muscovy and Persia in the hope of making arrangements by which his newly-founded city of Frederikstad should become the terminus of an overland silk-trade. It is by his admirable narrative of this legation {Beschreibung der moskowitischen und persischen Reise, Schleswig, 1647, and afterwards in several enlarged editions) that Olearius is best known, though he also published a history of Holstein, and a translation of the Gulistan {Persianisches Rosenthal, Schleswig, 1654), to which was appended a translation of the fables of Lokman. A French version of the Beschreibung was published by Wicquefort (1679), and an English version (1662, 2d ed. 1669) by John Davies of Kidwelly.

The embassy to which Olearius was attached made two different journeys. The first (22d October 1633 to 6th April 1635) was by Hamburg, Lübeck, Riga, Dorpat (five months’ stay), Revel, Narva, Ladoga, and Novgorod to Moscow, and back again by a somewhat different route. The second (22d October 1635 to 1st August 1639) was by a similar route to Moscow, thence to the Volga, down the river to Astrakhan, across the Caspian to Nizovaya,and so on,byShemakha, Ardebil, Sultanieh, Kaswin, &c., to Ispahan, and then back again by Resht and Lenkoran to Astrakhan, Kazan, Moscow, &c. Paul Fleming the poet and Mandelslo, whose travels to the East Indies are usually published with those of Olearius, accompanied the embassy.