RICINUS COMMUNIS. 
Palma Christi.* 
Class MONCECIA. — Order MONADELPHIA. 
Nat. Ord. Tricocc^, Linn. EuPHORBijE, Juss. 
Gen. Char. Male. Calyx 5-parted. Corolla 0. Stamens 
numerous. 
Female. Ca/yx 3-parted. Corolla 0. Styles 3, 
bifid. Cap We 8- eel led. Seed one. 
Spec. Char. Leaves peltate. Lobes lanceolate, serrated. 
Stem herbaceous. Stigmas three, cloven at the tip. 
This species of Palma Christi,t from the seeds of which the 
medicinal oil called castor oil is obtained, is an annual plant, grow- 
ing spontaneously in all the warm regions of the old and new world : 
hence it is found in Sicily, Greece, the East and West Indies, South 
America, and Africa. In the latter country it sometimes attains the 
height of sixteen feet, and assumes the shrubby appearance of the 
common elder ; from which some conception may be formed of the 
astonishing rapidity of its growth, when fostered by the heat of a 
genial climate. Clusius says he has seen it in Spain as much as 
fifteen or twenty feet high, with a trunk as large as a man's body ; 
and Ray also says that in Sicily it is as large as the elder tree, and 
woody, but he speaks of it as a perennial plant, which is expressly 
denied by Willdenow,| At Pamisus in the Morea, where it grows 
in great abundance, it is called Agra Staphylia, or wild vine, from 
the resemblance of its leaves to those of the vine.§ As a native of 
* Fig. a. represents the underside of a leaf shewing the insertion of the foostalk, 
b. A female flower, c. The seed. d. An anther. 
-f- The term Palma Christi has been given to this plant from a supposition that it was 
the plant strewed before the path of our Saviour, as mentioned in the 12th chapter of 
St. John, 
t " Planta semper annua," says this botanist, " nunquam fracticosa, vel arborea, 
nec in calidissimis terrac plagis lignescit. — Spec. Plant, iv. 564, 
$ Cell's Journey in the Morea, p. 193. 
VOL II. B 
