Like all oleanders, Thevetia peruviana is beautiful and toxic. In parts of Africa, it’s utilitarian, too.
Paul Stekler, “chief” of the University of Texas film department, kindly kept HFP in mind on a recent trip to Zambia. Paul spent about a week in the Luangwa River valley, advising and assisting Iskra Valtcheva and Miguel Alvarez as they filmed the Chiutiki Basic grade school. Founders Erinn McGurn and Guy Baron have undertaken several ambitious building efforts for the 1500 local students, their teachers and families and are now expanding to other school projects in the region, a ripe subject for documentary film.
But Paul generously broke from moving pictures to take several stills of “yellow flowers” for us in Mfuwe.
Thevetia peruviana outside the chief’s residence, Mfuwe, Zambia. Photo: Paul Stekler
We were especially struck by a tall bushy tree, festooned with trumpet shaped blossoms. It turns out to be Thevetia peruviana, also known as Yellow Oleander or Lucky Nut (there are 70 languages spoken in Zambia so we don’t know the local name for this beauty). Paul reports that this particular specimen (or is it a hedge?) was growing outside Chief Minkhanya’s house. As it should be! The Peruvian native, which obviously does well in Central Africa, is a dazzler, a fitting signpost of power.
Perhaps the chief should attach a warning sign, though. Yellow Oleander, we’ve since learned, routinely kills people, most of them children, in Africa and the Asian tropics. All parts of the plant, but the seeds especially, are toxic. According to this report, a child can die from ingesting just one Yellow Oleander seed.
But as these photos reveal Thevetia peruviana has many benign features — even some beneficent ones. In parts of Central Africa, including Kenya, it’s increasingly being cultivated as a fuel-plant. The same seed oil that traumatizes human hearts is quite good at running engines. The World Bank initiated a biodiesel project in Kenya ten years ago.
Sacks of Thevetia peruviana seed, ready for dehulling—future biofuel. Photo: via Joseph Keriko, USDA.
Scholar Joseph Keriko’s report lists several “utilities” of Yellow Oleander.
- • A good source of nectar for honey making since it flowers throughout the year
- • Source of firewood fuel
- • Source of material for furniture making
- • Provision of shades in homesteads, schools and shopping centres
- • The cake can be used as source of animal feeds and/or manure.
Chief Minkhanya of Mfuwe, Zambia. Photo: Clean Water for Katema School.
Check this site for a “Fantastic Voyage” style description of Yellow Oleander pollination; it’s as if you’re riding on the back of a bee (better even than accompanying Raquel Welch).
We understand that as the leader of Mfuwe, Minkhanya has made many bold and wise decisions.
“He banned farming with toxic pesticides throughout his chiefdom, actively supports HIV-AIDS education programs and stay in school programs, and has strict adherence to a philosophy that there can be no success at the local level without buy-in from the community.”
And he introduced this beautiful and serviceable plant to the Luangwa River valley.
Thank you, Paul, for spurring some education here at HFP, as you do at UT and everywhere else you go. Hail to both Chiefs!
What a lovely article! Thank you for writing it Julie. By the way, we were waiting by the tree, pictured above, for the chief to come back to his compound, from another appointment. Suddenly, an older man with a red hat went by on an old bicycle. I asked our driver who he was and he smiled and said “that’s the chief.” No airs per se. And obviously, a man with foresight.