Taxon: Ricinus communis L.

A declared aquatic or terrestrial noxious weed and/or noxious-weed seed in these U.S. states (see state noxious weed lists), with links to state information or web documents:

TX°.

ªAquatic.

*Terrestrial.

°In seed.

Link to noxious weed information from

Common names:

• castor   (Source: Herbs Commerce ed2 ) – English
  
• castor-bean   (Source: World Econ Pl ) – English
  
• castor-oil-plant   (Source: World Econ Pl ) – English
  
• palma-christi   (Source: Pl Book ) – English
  
• kasterolieboom   (Source: Weeds SAfr 2001 ) – Afrikaans
  
• ricin   (Source: Dict Rehm ) – French
  
• Rizinus   (Source: Dict Rehm ) – German
  
• bafureira   (Source: PROTABASE ) – Portuguese
  
• carrapateiro   (Source: PROTABASE ) – Portuguese
  
• mamoneiro   (Source: PROTABASE ) – Portuguese
  
• rícino   (Source: Dict Rehm ) – Portuguese
  
• higuerilla   (Source: Names Soukup ) – Spanish
  
• mbarika   (Source: PROTABASE ) – Swahili
  
• mbono mdogo   (Source: PROTABASE ) – Swahili
  
• mnyonyo   (Source: PROTABASE ) – Swahili
  

More:

see MMPND for additional names in foreign scripts

Economic importance:

• Food additives: flavoring   (also for protective coatings of tablets fide Ency CNatIn)
  
• Environmental: ornamental   (fide F TE Afr; Pl Book; Invasive Pl Spec)
  
• Fuels: potential as petroleum substitute/alcohol   (fide Amer J Pl SciBiotech 1:8. 2007)
  
• Invertebrate food: silkworms   (fide Use Pl WT Afr)
  
• Materials: beads; lipids   (fide Bot Beads World; as web document; Ency CNatIn, as lubricant or component of industrial products)
  
• Medicines: folklore   (fide Ency CNatIn; CRC MedHerbs ed2; Herbs Commerce ed2; Biodiv Conserv 13:459. 2004)
  
• Vertebrate poisons: mammals   (fide Kingsbury; Kellerman et al.; Lampe & McCann; Cooper & Johnson ed2)
  
• Weed: also potential seed contaminant   (fide Noxweed Aust; Invasive Pl Spec; Weeds SAfr 2001)
  

More:

View toxicology references for Ricinus communis from FDA Poisonous Plant Database

View phytochemical or ethnobotanical data from Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases

Distributional range:

      Naturalized:

• naturalized throughout tropics & subtropics, probable origin Africa

References:

• PROTABASE, the information base of PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa) - on-line resource. (PROTABASE)
• Balakrishnan, N. P. & T. Chakrabarty. 2007. The family Euphorbiaceae in India; a synopsis of its profile, taxonomy and bibliography. (Euphorb India)
• Burkill, H. M. 1985–2004. The useful plants of west tropical Africa. (Use Pl WT Afr)
• Duke, J. A. et al. 2002. CRC Handbook of medicinal herbs. (CRC MedHerbs ed2)
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). 2010. Ecocrop - on-line resource. (Ecocrop)
• Govaerts, R. et al. 2000. World checklist and bibliography of Euphorbiaceae. (L Euphorb)
• Henderson, L. 2001. Alien weeds and invasive plants: a complete guide to declared weeds and invaders in South Africa. Plant Protection Research Institute, Handbook 12. (Weeds SAfr 2001)
• Johnson, J. M.-F. et al. 2007. Biomass-bioenergy crops in the United States: A changing paradigm. Amer. J. Pl. Sci. Biotechnol. 1:8.
• Kala, C. P. et al. 2004. Prioritization of medicinal plants on the basis of available knowledge, existing practices and use value status in Uttaranchal, India. Biodivers. & Conserv. 13:459.
• Leung, A. Y. & S. Foster. 1996. Encyclopedia of common natural ingredients used in food, drugs, and cosmetics, ed. 2. (Ency CNatIn)
• Mabberley, D. J. 1997. The plant-book: a portable dictionary of the vascular plants, ed. 2. (Pl Book)
• Malezasdemexico. Malezas de México - on-line resource. (Malezas Mex)
• Markle, G. M. et al., eds. 1998. Food and feed crops of the United States, ed. 2. (Food Feed Crops US)
• McGuffin, M., J. T. Kartesz, A. Y. Leung, & A. O. Tucker. 2000. Herbs of commerce, ed. 2. (Herbs Commerce ed2)
• Munro, D. B. Canadian poisonous plants information system - on-line resource. (Can Poison Pl)
• Parsons, W. T. & E. G. Cuthbertson. 1992. Noxious weeds of Australia. (Noxweed Aust)
• Porcher, M. H. et al. Searchable World Wide Web Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database (MMPND) - on-line resource. (Pl Names)
• Rehm, S. 1994. Multilingual dictionary of agronomic plants. (Dict Rehm)
• Saldanha, C. J. & D. H. Nicolson. 1976. Flora of Hassan district. (F Hassan)
• Soukup, J. 1970. Vocabulario de los nombres vulgares de la flora peruana. (Names Soukup) 292.
• Weber, E. 2003. Invasive plant species of the world: a reference guide to environmental weeds. (Invasive Pl Spec)
• Westphal, E. & P. C. M. Jansen, eds. 1989. A selection. Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). (Pl Res SEAs) A:237.

More:

Search AGRICOLA article citation database for citations referencing Ricinus communis.

Search NCBI's Entrez search engine for PubMed citations referencing Ricinus communis. Note: Defaults to a search by genus or species epithet if species binomial not found.

Check other databases for Ricinus communis L.:

• Mansfeld: Mansfeld's World Database of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops
• PROTABASE: Plant Resources of Tropical Africa's (PROTA's) online resource
• ePIC: Electronic Plant Information Centre of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• AGRICOLA: Article Citation Database or NAL Catalog of USDA's National Agricultural Library
• Entrez: NCBI's search engine for PubMed citations, GenBank sequences, etc.
  Note: Defaults to a search by genus or species epithet if species binomial not found.

Images:

• Seed: U.S. National Seed Herbarium image
• Seeds: U.S. National Seed Herbarium image
• Seeds or fruits: Seed ID Workshop image, from Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, Ohio State University

More:

• Check PlantSystematics.org for additional images
• Images Note: Be advised that their identity may be inaccurate. Proper identification of a plant may require specialized taxonomic knowledge or comparison with properly documented herbarium material.

Abbreviations & symbols in GRIN Taxonomy

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| USDA | ARS | GRIN | NPGS | New Search |

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Cite as:
USDA, ARS, National Genetic Resources Program.
Germplasm Resources Information Network - (GRIN) [Online Database].
National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland.
URL: http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxon.pl?31896 (09 February 2010)

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