RICINUS COMMUNIS. 35 
_ All parts of the plant are highly purgative ; the seeds, however, are more so than other portions ; they were 
known for a long time by the name of Grana Molucca and Grana Tight. Rumphius states that the root is employed 
in Amboyna, in the dose of a few grains as a drastic purge, and the leaves are also stated to be so acrid that, when 
chewed and swallowed, they excite painful inflammation in the mouth, throat, and whole alimentary canal. The 
~ wood even is active. 
The seeds are rather larger than a grain of coffee, of an oblong form, rounded at the extremities, of two faces, 
the external considerably more convex than the internal, separated from each other by longitudinal ridges, and each 
divided by a similar longitudinal ridge, so that the whole seed presents an irregular quadrangular figure. It sometimes 
happens that one of the three seeds in the capsule is abortive, in which case the two perfect ones are impressed by the 
central column, forming a well-marked central groove. The shell is covered with a soft, yellowish-brown epidermis, 
beneath which the surface is black and smooth ; when this epidermis is partially removed, the seeds are of a mottled 
appearance, and sometimes nearly black. ‘The kernel abounds in oil. ‘They have scarcely any odour, and their taste 
is acrid, pungent and nauseating. 
_ Brands found them to contain fixed oil, volatile oil, and a volatile acid, (crotonic,) an alkaline substance (crotonin or 
tiglin) and resin. The proportion of shell to the kernel, according to Dr. Nimmo, is thirty-six to sixty-four. 
According to Mr. Pope, the acrid principle resides in the perisperm, and not in the kernel of the seeds. The 
seeds are highly purgative; they for a long time were known in India, and employed with this indication. About the 
year 1630 they were introduced into Europe; the Dutch were first acquainted with their properties. 
The oil is now used; it has an orange yellow colour, the consistence of sweet oil, is slightly soluble in alcohol, and 
slightly reddens litmus paper. It has a disagreeable odour and a pungent taste. This oil isa highly active purgative, 
in small doses (one drop), giving little uneasiness to the patient, but in large doses producing vomiting, spasm and 
inflammation. It was brought into notice in England, by Dr. Conwell, in 1820. 
The seeds of C. paverna are said by Dr. Hamilton also to yield a similar oil. 
Pirate LXXIX.—Represents the plant in flower, the magnified flower and the fruit. 
RICINUS COMMUNIS. 
LINNAUS. 
THE CASTOR OIL PLANT. 
Sex. Syst.—Moneecia, Monadelphia. 
Gen. Cuar.—F lowers moncecious. Calyx 3-5 parted, valvate. Petals none. Male. Filaments numerous, une- 
qually polyadelphous; cells of the anther distinct, below the apex of the filament. Female. Style short. Stigmas 
three, deeply bipartite, oblong, coloured, feathery. Ovary globose, three-celled, with an ovule in each cell. Fruit 
generally prickly, capsular, tricoccous. Trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants, sometimes becoming arborescent. Leaves 
alternate, stipulate, palmate, peltate, with glands at the apex of the petiole. Flowers in terminal panicles, the lower 
male, the upper female; all articulated with their peduncles, and sometimes augmented by biglandular bracts. (Lendley.) 
Srecir. Cuar.— Root perennial or annual, long, thick, and fibrous. Stems round, thick, jointed, channelled, 
glaucous, ofa purplish red colour upwards. Leaves large, deeply divided into seven segments, on long tapering pur- 
— stalks. Flowers in long green and glaucous spikes, springing from the divisions of the branches ; the males 
tom the lower part of the spike, the females from the upper. Capsules prickly. Seeds ovate, shining, black dotted 
with grey. (Lindley.) 
= This plant, from its large palmated leaf, has been called Palma Christi. It is a native of the East, but grows in 
parts of the world, in the temperate and tropical regions. 
- It has been known for ages, as it is mentioned in the works of the oldest writers on medicine under different 
mes. M. Caillaud announced the fact that the seeds of the Palma Christi had been noticed by him in the sarco- 
Qe the embalmed Egyptians, which evinces the great estimation in which it was held. 
setts: © varieties of this plant are several, depending on soil and climate, &c. In Great Britain it is an annual, 
hing a height of three or four feet, in the United States, ten or fifteen. In India, according to Roxburg, it is a 
