PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 423 



while in the tropics, and even in Italy, they are grown 

 for the sake of the oil contained in the seed. This oil, 

 which is more or less purgative, is used for lamps in 

 Bengal and elsewhere. 



In no country has the species been found wild with 

 such certainty as in Abyssinia, Sennaar, and the Kordofan. 

 The expressions of authors and collectors are distinct on 

 this head. The castor-oil plant is common in rocky 

 places in the valley of Chire, near Goumalo, says Quartin 

 Dillon ; it is wild in those parts of Upper Sennaar which 

 are flooded during the rains, says Hartmann.-^ I have 

 a specimen from Kotschy, No. 243, gathered on the 

 northern slope of Mount Kohn, in the Kordofan. The 

 indications of travellers in Mozambique and on the coast 

 of Guinea are not so clear, but it is possible that the 

 natural area of the species co\ ers a great part of tropical 

 Africa. As it is a useful species, and one very conspicuous 

 and easily propagated, the negroes must have early 

 diflused it. However, as we draw near the Mediterranean, 

 it is no longer said to be indigenous. In Egypt, Schwein- 

 furth and Ascherson ^ say the species is only cultivated 

 and naturalized. Probably in Algeria, Sardinia, and 

 Morocco, and even in the Canaries, where it is principally 

 found in the sand on the sea-shore, it has been naturalized 

 for centuries. I believe this to be the case with speci- 

 mens brought from Djedda, in Arabia, by Schimper, 

 which were gathered near a cistern. Yet Forskal^ 

 gathered the caster-oil plant in the mountains of Arabia 

 Felix, which may signify a wild station. Boissier* 

 indicates it in Beluchistan and the south of Persia, 

 but as " subspontaneous," as in Syria, Anatolia, and 

 Greece. 



Rheede ^ speaks of the plant as cultivated in Malabar 

 and growing in the sand, but modern Anglo-Indian 

 authors do not aUow that it is wild. Some make no 



^ Eicliard, Tentamen Fl. Abyss., ii. p. 250; ScLweinfurth, Plantoe 

 Niloticce a Martmann, etc., p. 13. 



2 Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzdhlung, p. 262. 



3 Forskal, Fl. Arahica, p. 71. '' Boissier, Fl. Orient., iv. p. 1143. 

 * Rheede, Malabar, ii. p. 57, t. 32. 



