44: HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



A very large and important order of over 3,000 species of herbs, shrubs and 

 trees, usually with milky, acrid juice. About half of the representatives belong 

 to tropical America and some yield valuable medicines, others active poisons and 

 others important foods. 



GENUS RICINUS, TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves alternate, large (often a foot or two across) peltate and palniately seven 

 to many-lobed. lobes unequally serrated. Flowers monoecious, disposed in long, 

 glaucous, sub-paniculate racemes at the ends of the branches, short pediceled, the 

 staminate clustered above pistillate flowers ; calyx in the staminate flowers closed 

 in the bud, in the pistillate sheath-like, cleft and very caducous ; petals wanting 

 in both sorts of flowers; stamens very numerous, with crowded branched filaments, 

 each branch bearing two separate roundish anther-cells ; ovary 3-celled with 

 2-cleft plumose styles and a single ovule in each cell. Fruit a subglobose smooth 

 or prickly capsule, hardly 1 in. in diameter and dehiscent septicidally from the 

 base into three cells (cocci) which in turn are dehiscent loculicidally and from 

 each is liberated a large compressed oblong seed, with smooth crustaceous brown 

 and white testa, terminal hiluni, fleshy albumen and broad flat cotyledons. 



A genus of the single following species (of which, however, there are several 

 garden varieties) and the name, Ricinus, is the ancient Latin name of a tick which 

 insect the seeds of this plant are said to resemble. 



189. RICINUS COMMUNIS, L. 



CASTOR-BEAN TREE. PALMA CHRISTA. 

 Ger., It tf/'/i i/sb a in .. Fr., Arbre d Jiiciii ; Sp., Arltol <1< I !''> 



The Castor Bean Tree, or the Castor Oil Plant as it is commonly known, is 

 remarkable in that in temperate climates it is an herbaceous annual, blossoming 

 and maturing its fruit the first year, but in tropical and sub-tropical regions it 

 becomes a woody perennial a veritable tree. It sometimes attains the height 

 of 20 or 30 ft. (7.50 m.) with broad, rounded, full top and trunk sometimes a foot 

 (0.30 m.) in diameter, with quite thin smooth gray bark. 



As an annual, throughout the greater part of the United States, it i.- 

 a vigorous stately plant from 3 to 10 feet in height, of a striking and 

 highly ornamental aspect on account of its symmetrical form, large 

 peltate leaves and conspicuous flower clusters. In its tree form it is 

 scarcely less ornamental, though there the leaves do not often attain 

 the maximum dimensions. 



HAIJITAT. --The native home of the Castor Bean is thought to he 

 either tropical Africa or tropical Asia, but so abundantly has it been 

 planted and become naturalized throughout all warm countries that it 

 is a point difficult to determine. It is thoroughly naturalized in 

 southern California, growing luxuriously in rich bottom-lands, espe- 

 cially in the vicinity of Los Angeles and San Pedro. 



PHYSICAL PIMI-KKTIKS. Wood very light, soft, not strong, of rapid 

 growth, with ijuite large evenly distributed open ducts, obscure annual 

 rings and tine medullary rays. The heart-wood is of a mottled brown 

 color, and the sap-wood is nearly white, green-tinted near the bark. 



