Cascabela thevetia(L.) Lippold

Yellow oleanderluckynut

WFO wfo-0000810099 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cascabela thevetia, photographed by Steve Oziel
fig. a Steve Oziel, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-19 / obs. 198978134
Cascabela thevetia, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. b Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 197064370
Cascabela thevetia, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. c Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195978353
Cascabela thevetia, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. d Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195978322
Cascabela thevetia, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. e Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195394978
Cascabela thevetia, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. f Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 194435646
Cascabela thevetia, photographed by Jon Sullivan
fig. g Jon Sullivan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191030462
Cascabela thevetia, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. h Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 187939951

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 25 botanical countries

Regions where Cascabela thevetia is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela Mexico CentralMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruSurinameVenezuela
Native distribution of Cascabela thevetia, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Venezuela VEN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 298 in flower of 330 examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Cascabela thevetia observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 298 of 330 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,939 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.9 °C 16.4 °C 23.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.0 °C 30.3 °C 40.0 °C
Annual rainfall 475 mm 1,185 mm 2,599 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 2 mm 79 mm 297 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,939 research-grade observations of Cascabela thevetia that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 16 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Ahouai thevetia (L.) M.Gómez
  • Cascabela peruviana (Pers.) Raf.
  • Cerbera linearifolia Stokes
  • Cerbera peruviana Pers.
  • Cerbera thevetia L.
  • Thevetia linearis Raf.
  • Thevetia linearis Raf.
  • Thevetia longifolia Vahl
  • Thevetia neriifolia Juss. ex A.DC.
  • Thevetia neriifolia Juss. ex Steud.
  • Thevetia neriifolia var. hirsuta Müll.Arg.
  • Thevetia neriifolia var. leucantha Müll.Arg.
  • Thevetia neriifolia var. pubescens Müll.Arg.
  • Thevetia peruviana (Pers.) K.Schum.
  • Thevetia peruviana f. aurantiaca H.St.John
  • Thevetia thevetia H.Karst.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.