. Cyclopedia of farm crops. Farm produce; Agriculture. Fig. 325. Flowers of castor-bean. A. ?St;imiuate; B. pis- tillate. Bulletin No. 58, Division of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture; Agricultural Ledger, 1904, No. 10, Calcutta, India; Bulletin of Botanical Department, Jamaica, Vol. IX, Part G. CASTOR-BEAN. Ricbius communis, Linn. Euphoi-- biacciB. Figs. 325-330. By E. Mead Wilcox. Castor-oil is derived from the seeds or beans of ricinus, a coarse perennial plant (treated as annual in temperate climates), bear- ing large alternate palmately lobed leaves, flowers in large ter
. Cyclopedia of farm crops. Farm produce; Agriculture. Fig. 325. Flowers of castor-bean. A. ?St;imiuate; B. pis- tillate. Bulletin No. 58, Division of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture; Agricultural Ledger, 1904, No. 10, Calcutta, India; Bulletin of Botanical Department, Jamaica, Vol. IX, Part G. CASTOR-BEAN. Ricbius communis, Linn. Euphoi-- biacciB. Figs. 325-330. By E. Mead Wilcox. Castor-oil is derived from the seeds or beans of ricinus, a coarse perennial plant (treated as annual in temperate climates), bear- ing large alternate palmately lobed leaves, flowers in large terminal clusters, and vari- colored seeds in prickly three- membered pods or burs. The flowers are unisexual and are gathered on a frequently much elongated axis, the staminate flowers generally being along the lower, the pistillate along the upper part of the inflores- cence; flowers without petals; stamens many; pistils three, two-parted, red. The castor-oil plant belongs to a family that has over four thousand species and is developed most highly in the tropics. It furnishes a great variety of useful products, /»^ among which may be named cassava or tapioca, caoutchouc and shellac. In the tropics, the castor-bean grows to a tree thirty to forty feet high, but in temperate regions it is a large annual. The original home of the castor-oil plant was in Africa or India, but it is now cultivated in all the warmer parts of the world, either for its oil or as an ,jrvj^ ornamental plant. The highest yield *Si!r of oil is secured in the tropics, and it is grown only for ornamental purposes in the northern part of the corn-belt, where it would be a failure if grown for oil. It is said, however, that the oil secured from beans grown in the temperate climate of the United States is superior for medicinal purposes to that grown in the tropics. In the United States the plant is now cultivated commercially in Okla- -V^I ^^ homa, Illinois, Mi-ssouri and Kansas, ?^*Wwf^ Oklahoma producing pro
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