36 MEDICAL BOTANY. 
perennial of large size. Clusius saw it in Spain with a trunk as large as a man’s body. Monard asserts the sam 
and Richard informs us, that, in the year 1818, he saw, in the vicinity of Ville Franche, near Nice, upon the borders of 
the sea, a small wood composed entirely of the Ricinus. | 
The seeds of this plant, at one time called cataputia major in the shops of Europe, are oval, obtuse at both ends, 
the size of a small bean, compressed, smooth, and shining, of a grayish or ash colour, marbled with reddish-brown 
spots and veins. At one extremity of the seed isa small yellowish tubercle, from which an obscure longitudinal 
ridge proceeds to the opposite extremity, dividing the side upon which it is situated into two flat surfaces. In its 
general appearance, the seed is thought to resemble the tzck, and hence the Latin name Ricinus. Its variegated colour 
depends upon a very thin pellicle, closely investing a hard, brittle, black, tasteless, easily separable shell, within which 
is the kernel, of a white colour, abounding in oil and possessing a sweetish, thin, acrid taste. This substance soon 
becomes rancid, and the oil from it is acrid and irritating. 
Geyer found of 100 parts (exclusive of moisture) 23-82 were envelope, and 69-09 were kernel. The latter was 
found to consist of fixed oil, gum, starch, lignin and albumen. An acrid principle, volatile by heat, and dissipated by 
boiling, exists in the kernel of the seeds. 
The fixed oil is the medicinal article; it is white, yellowish or brown, according to the mode of preparation. It 
is thick, viscid, and difficult to congeal, is heavier than most fixed oils, and is soluble in alcohol. _It has, when pure, 
no odour, but this is hardly ever the case, the odour being unpleasant ; its taste is sweet, then acrid. By the action of 
the atmosphere, and from age, it becomes thick and rancid. It contains a volatile oil, ricinic, oleo-ricinic, and margaro- 
ricinic acids. The modes of procuring the oil are: Ist, decoction; 2d, expression ; 3d, by alcohol. 
The method of procuring the oil in this country, is a modification of the two first. Considerable quantities are 
made in the Southern States, for home consumption and shipment. A good oil is made in India, and West India 
castor oil is sometimes met with. The yield of the seed is twenty-five per cent. : 
Castor oil is a mild effectual cathartic, in doses of an ounce. 
Pirate LXXX.—Represents the plant in flower, the germ, and the capsule matured. 
JANIPHA MANIHOT. 
KUNTH. 
CASSAVA OR TAPIOCA PLANT. 
Jatropua Maninot.—Linneus. 
Sex. Sysr.—Moneecia, Monadelphia. : ‘ 
Gey. Cuar.—Flowers moneecious. Calyx campanulate, five-parted. Petals none. Male. Stamens ten. Fila 
ments unequal, distinct, arranged around a disk. Female. Style one. Stigmas three, consolidated into a rugose mass. 
Capsule tricoccous. (A. de Jussieu.) , 
Specir. Cuar.—Root oblong, tuberous, as big as one’s fist, full of a wheyish, venomous juice. Stems white, 
crooked, brittle, having a very large pith, and several knobs sticking out on every side like warts, being the remains 
_ of the footstalks of the leaves, which have dropped off, usually six to seven feet high, with a smooth, white a 
_ Branches crooked, and have on every side near their tops, leaves irregularly placed on long serete petioles, broa ae 
cordate in their outline, divided nearly to their base into five spreading, lanceolate, entire segments, attenuated at vad 
extremities, dark green above, pale glaucous beneath; the midrib strong, prominent below, and there yellowish : 
from it there branch off several oblique veins, connected by lesser transverse ones. Stipules small, lanceolate, eer 
nate, caducous. Panicles or compound racemes, axillary and terminal, four to five inches long, bearing on ts 
male or all female flowers; at other times these are mixed on the same peduncle. Pedicels with small, subulate abe 
at their base. Male flower smaller than the female. Calyx purplish on the outside, fulvous brown within, cut - ae 
half way down into five spreading segments. Disk orange-coloured, fleshy, annular, ten-rayed. Stamens ten, ef 
nate with the lobes of the disk. Filaments shorter than the calyx, white, filiform, free. Anthers linet i 
low. Female flower of the same colour as the male, deeply five-parted, the segments lanceolate, ovate SPC stig | 
Disk an annular, orange-coloured ring, in which the purple, ovate, furrowed ovary is embedded. pe beter plack, = 
mas three, reflexed, furrowed, and plaited, white. Capsule ovate, three-cornered, tricoccous. Seeds elliptical, Di™" ee 
shining, with a thick fleshy funiculus. . 
