Nerium oleander, which grows throughout the state of Alabama, is a beautiful, but highly toxic, plant. (Photograph by L. J. Davenport)
In the first chapter of their recent book, Poisonous Plants and Venomous Animals of Alabama and Adjoining States (University of Alabama Press, 1990), co-author Whit Gibbons, Robert R. Haynes, and Joab L. Thomas felt compelled to list Alabama's twenty-nine most dangerous organisms. And listed alongside the obvious choices--canebrake rattlers, black widow spider, and destroying angel (a poisonous mushroom) was a not-so-obvious one: the popular shrub, oleander.
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