ABOUT CASTOR BEANS

     Castor Beans are not beans. The seeds do not come in a pod. The plant is not a legume. The seeds are poisonous or at least they contain the deadly poison Ricin. When you see a photograph of a seed it will have been greatly enlarged for clarity and you could be misled to expect something larger than its' actual 1cm. It does look like a bean, mottled brown or black on a light ground.   The seeds are processed for their oil that is used medicinally and as an industrial lubricant. The pressed residue is then fed to livestock. Economically it is a valuable plant.
     Ricinus communis is native to north east Africa including the Valley of the Nile where it can grow to as much as 12 metres although more typically to 4 metres. Garden centres usually offer a form with purple-red foliage on a plant that will grow 2 to 3 metres tall in our summers. The large leaves have a number of pointed lobes with serrated edges. It is not as popular as it was 100 years ago in the Edwardian times when large public floral displays were so fashionable; yet still used today by municipal parks departments.
     Since the seeds are poisonous it is surprising that it is planted at all; although poisonings just don't seem to happen. The flowers of Castor Bean or Castor Oil Plant are separately male and female. If the growing season is long enough the seeds will mature in round soft-spined capsules in a steeple-like cluster. Your safe options are to not to grow the plant or to remove the female flower spike before the capsules form or the seeds ripen.
     My family believed in the medical dictum; Keep Your Feet Warm, Your Head Cool and Your Bowels Open. Our choice of a laxative was Castor Oil despite its' viscid repulsiveness. Parents found it hard to administer and children forced to swallow it would think perhaps that they were being punished for some imagined misdeed.
     Pure Ricin made world news in 1978 when it was used to assassinate a Bulgarian journalist (probably some kind of spy). It reads like a plot device straight out of a James Bond story. The man was killed when a ricin loaded bullet was fired into his leg from a compressed-gas pistol that was disguised as an umbrella. In broad daylight. At the bus stop.