Ricinus communis
Wonder tree !!
BOTANICAL NAME: Ricinus communis
FAMILY: Euphorbiaceae (castor family)
COMMON NAME: Castor bean, Castor oil plant, Wonder tree, Arandi,Palma Christi, Palma Christi, Ricin, Wonder Tree, Krapata, Djarak, Reer, Arandi, Mexico Seed, Vatari, Eranda, Rendi, Bofareira.
PARTS USED: Leaves, seeds, roots, oil, fruit
HABITAT: By cultivation it has been distributed through not only all tropical and subtropical regions, but also in many of the temperate countries of the globe. The castor bean plant, an erect, tropical shrub or small tree, grows up to 30 feet tall. As an annual in the cooler zones, it grows up to 15' tall. It is a very fast growing plant.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
The valuable purgative known as Castor Oil is the fixed oil obtained from the seeds of the Castor Oil plant. Besides being used medicinally, the oil is also employed for lubricating purposes, burning and for leather dressing. The Chinese are said to have some mode of depriving it of its medicinal properties so as to render it suitable for culinary purposes.
The Castor Oil plant is a native of India, where it bears several ancient Sanskrit names, the most ancient and most usual being Eranda, which has passed into several other Indian languages.
It is very variable in habit and appearance, the known varieties being very numerous, and having mostly been described as species. In the tropical latitudes most favourable to its growth, it becomes a tree 30 to 40 feet high; in the Azores and the warmer Mediterranean countries - Algeria, Egypt, Greece and the Riviera - it is of more slender growth, attaining an average height of only 10 to 15 feet, and farther north in France, and in this country, where it is cultivated as an ornamental plant on account of its large and beautiful foliage, it is merely a shrubby branched annual herb, rarely more than 4 to 5 feet high, with thick, hollow, herbaceous stems, which are cylindrical, smooth and shiny, with a purplish bloom in the upper part.
BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION:
++The joints of the hollow stem, stalks and leaves are reddish to purple.
++Leaf: The handsome leaves are placed alternately on the stem, on long, curved, purplish foot-stalks, with drooping blades, generally 6 to 8 inches across, sometimes still larger, palmately cut for threefourths of their depth into seven to eleven lance-shaped, pointed, coarsely toothed segments. When fully expanded, they are of a blue-green colour, paler beneath and smooth; when young, they are red and shining.The 6 - 11 lobed, palmate leaves with uneven serrated edge, are also red or colored and often have a blue-gray bloom. There is also a green variety.
++The flat seeds are in a seedpod that explodes when ripen.
++Flower:The flowers are male and female on the same plant, and are produced on a clustered, oblong, terminal spike. The male flowers are placed on the under portion of the spike; they have no corolla, only a green calyx, deeply cut into three to five segments, enclosing numerous, much branched, yellow stamens. The female flowers occupy the upper part of the spike and have likewise no corolla. The three narrow segments of the calyx are, however, of a reddish colour, and the ovary in their centre is crowned by deeply-divided, carmine-red threads (styles).All the top of the stem and stalks are the inflorescence with the male - and female flowers. The female flowers are the fuzzy red structures at the top of the flower spike with the male flowers positioned on the lower half, and have conspicuous yellow anthers
++Fruit:The fruit is a blunt, greenish, deeply-grooved capsule less than an inch long, covered with soft, yielding prickles in each of which a seed is developed.The oblong fruit turns brown when ripe. In each seed pod (a capsule) there are three seeds.
++Seed: The seeds of the different cultivated varieties differ much in size and in external markings but average seeds are of an oval, laterally compressed form. The smaller, annual varieties yield small seeds- the tree forms, large seeds. They have a shining, marble-grey and brown, thick, leathery outer coat, within which is a thin, dark-coloured, brittle coat. A large, distinct, leafy embryo lies in the middle of a dense, oily tissue (endosperm). The seeds contain a toxic substance which make them actively poisonous, so much so that three large seeds have been known to kill an adult.The seeds of castor bean or castor oil plant, are very poisonous to people, animals and insects; just one milligram of ricin (one of the main toxic proteins in the plant) can kill an adult. The castor oil is extracted from the beans, which is used for medicinal purposes. Commercially prepared castor oil contains none of the toxin.
PREPARATIONS FOR MARKET:
The seeds are collected when ripe: as the capsules dry, they open and discharge the seeds.
The oil is obtained from the seeds by two principal methods - expression and decoction. The latter process is largely used in India, where the oil on account of its cheapness and abundance, is extensively employed for illuminating, as well as for other domestic andmedicinal purposes.
The oil exported from Calcutta to Europe is prepared by shelling and crushing the seed between rollers. The crushed mass is then placed in hempen cloths and pressed in a screw or hydraulic press. The oil which exudes is mixed with water and heated till the water boils and the mucilaginous matter in the oil separates as a scum. It is next strained, then bleached in the sunlight and stored for exportation.
In France, the oil is obtained by macerating the bruised seeds in alcohol, but the process is expensive and the product inferior.
There are two modes of extracting the oil by expression: (1) without heat, when it is termed 'cold drawn Castor Oil,' this process being largely carried out in Italy, Marseilles, Belgium, Hull and London; (2) with heat, the process generally adopted in America.
Italian Castor Oil, which is of an excellent quality, is pressed from seeds grown chiefly in the neighbourhood of Verona and Legnago. Two varieties of Ricinus are cultivated in these localities, the black-seeded Egyptian and the red-seeded American, the latter yields the larger percentage, but the oil is not so pale in colour. All the Castor Oil pressed in Italy, however, is not pressed from Italian seed, but some seeds are imported from India into Italy - as also into this country.
In the north of Italy, the fresh seeds are alone used, and after they have been crushed and the seed coats very carefully removed with a winnowing machine and by hand, the blanched seeds are put into small hempen bags, which are arranged in superposed layers in a powerful hydraulic press, with a sheet of iron heated to 90 degrees F. between each layer, so as to enable the oil to flow readily, they are finally submitted to pressure in a room, which in the winter is heated to a temperature of about 70 degrees. The oil which first flows is of the finest quality, but an inferior oil is subsequently obtained by pressing the mass at a somewhat higher temperature. The peeled seeds yield about 40 per cent. of oil. After expression, the oil is usually bleached by exposure to sunlight or by chemical means.
In America, where the oil is obtained by expression with heat, the manufacture is conducted on an extensive scale in California. There the seeds are submitted to a dry heat in a furnace for an hour or so, by which they are softened and prepared to part easily with their oil. They are then pressed in a large powerful screwpress, and the oily matter which flows out is mixed with an equal proportion of water, and boiled to purify it from mucilaginous and albuminous matter. After boiling about an hour, it is allowed to cool, the water is drawn off and the oil is transferred to zinc tanks or clarifiers capable of holding from 60 to 100 gallons. In these it stands about eight hours, bleaching in the sun, after which it is ready for storing. By this method, 100 lb. of good seeds yield about five gallons of pure oil.
Of these three varieties of extraction, the Italian or cold drawn is considered the best the East Indian, the poorest, as the mode of purifying by heating with water is considered very imperfect. The former owes its freedom from acridity and unpleasant taste partly to the removal of the seed coats before pressing, and partly to the low temperature used during the manufacture.
CONSTITUENTS:
The seeds contain 50 per cent of the fixed oil, which is a viscid fluid, almost colourless when pure, possessing only a slight odour and mild, yet highly nauseous and disagreeable taste. Its specific gravity is high for an oil, being 0.96, a little less than that of water, and it dissolves freely in alcohol, ether and glacial acetic acid. It contains Palmitic and several other fatty acids, among which there is one - Ricinoleic acid - peculiar to itself. This occurs in combination with glycerine, constituting the greater part of the bulk of the oil. The oil is decomposed by the fat-splitting ferments of the intestinal canal liberating this irritant Ricinoleic acid, to which the purgative action is considered in all probablity to be due.
Both the seeds themselves and the cake left after the expression of the oil are violently purgative, a property which is due to the presence of the highly toxic albumin Ricin. The seeds are never employed in this country on account of their violent action. Ricin exhibits its highest toxicity when injected into the blood. It is of interest to note that the work upon which is based the whole science of Serum therapeutics was carried out by Ehrlich with Ricin. He found that by injecting gradually increasing doses, immunity was established, a condition which he attributed to the formation of an antibody and termed Antiricin.
MEDICINAL ACTIONS AND USES:
Castor Oil is regarded as one of the most valuable laxatives in medicine. It is of special service in temporary constipation and wherever a mild action is essential, and is extremely useful for children and the aged. It is used in cases of colic and acute diarrhoea due to slow digestion, but must not be employed in cases of chronic constipation, which it only aggravates whilst relieving the symptoms. It acts in about five hours, affecting the entire length of the bowel, but not increasing the flow of bile, except in very large doses. The mode of its action is unknown. The oil will purge when rubbed into the skin, or injected. It is also used for expelling worms, after other special remedies have been administered.
The only serious objections to the use of Castor Oil are its flavour and the sickness often produced by it. The nauseous taste may be disguised by administering it covered by Lemon oil, Sassafras oil and other essential oils, or floating on Peppermint or Cinnamon water, or coffee, or shaken up with glycerine, or given in fresh or warmed milk, the dose varying from 1 to 4 teaspoonsful. Probably the best way, however, is to administer it in capsules. Small repeated doses may be given in the intestinal colic of children.
It may also be made into an emulsion with the yolk of an egg or mucilage; or with orange-wine or gin.
Castor Oil forms a clean, light-coloured soap, which dries and hardens well and is free from smell. It has been recommended for medicinal use. The inferior qualities of the oil are frequently employed in India for soap-making.
Externally, the oil has been recommended for various cutaneous complaints, such as ringworm, itch, etc. The fresh leaves are used by nursing mothers in the Canary Islands as an external application, to increase the flow of milk.
The oil varies much in activity - the East Indian is the more active, but the Italian has the least taste.
Castor Oil is an excellent solvent of pure alkaloids and such solutions of Atropine, Cocaine, etc., as are used in ophthalmic surgery. It is also dropped into the eye to remove the after-irritation caused by the removal of foreign bodies.
'Castor Oil is finding increasing uses in the industrial world. It figures largely in the manufacture of the artificial leather used in upholstery; it furnishes a colouring for butter, and from it is produced the so-called 'Turkey-red' oil used in the dyeing of cotton textures. It is an essential component in some artificial rubbers, in various descriptions of celluloid, and in the making of certain waterproof preparations, and one of the largest uses is in the manufacture of transparent soaps. It also furnishes sebacic acid which is employed in the manufacture of candles, and caprylic acid, which enters into the composition of varnishes, especially suitable for the polishing of high-class furniture and carriage bodies. One of its minor uses is in the manufacture of fly-papers.' - 'West India Committee Circular.' (Quoted in The Chemist and Druggist.)
SOURCES:
>>http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Castor%20Bean%20Plant.html
>>http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/c/casoil32.html
>>http://ntbg.org/plants/plant_details.php?plantid=11833
>>http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-herbs/castor.html
>>http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/plant/ricinus.htm
>>http://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/eafrinet/weeds/key/weeds/Media/Html/Ricinus_communis_(Castor_Oil_Plant).htm
>>http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plmar99.htm
>>http://herbs.indianmedicinalplants.info/index.php/home/69-eranda-ricinus-communis-
>>http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy../Ricinus_communis.html
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_oil_plant
BOTANICAL NAME: Ricinus communis
FAMILY: Euphorbiaceae (castor family)
COMMON NAME: Castor bean, Castor oil plant, Wonder tree, Arandi,Palma Christi, Palma Christi, Ricin, Wonder Tree, Krapata, Djarak, Reer, Arandi, Mexico Seed, Vatari, Eranda, Rendi, Bofareira.
PARTS USED: Leaves, seeds, roots, oil, fruit
HABITAT: By cultivation it has been distributed through not only all tropical and subtropical regions, but also in many of the temperate countries of the globe. The castor bean plant, an erect, tropical shrub or small tree, grows up to 30 feet tall. As an annual in the cooler zones, it grows up to 15' tall. It is a very fast growing plant.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
The valuable purgative known as Castor Oil is the fixed oil obtained from the seeds of the Castor Oil plant. Besides being used medicinally, the oil is also employed for lubricating purposes, burning and for leather dressing. The Chinese are said to have some mode of depriving it of its medicinal properties so as to render it suitable for culinary purposes.
The Castor Oil plant is a native of India, where it bears several ancient Sanskrit names, the most ancient and most usual being Eranda, which has passed into several other Indian languages.
It is very variable in habit and appearance, the known varieties being very numerous, and having mostly been described as species. In the tropical latitudes most favourable to its growth, it becomes a tree 30 to 40 feet high; in the Azores and the warmer Mediterranean countries - Algeria, Egypt, Greece and the Riviera - it is of more slender growth, attaining an average height of only 10 to 15 feet, and farther north in France, and in this country, where it is cultivated as an ornamental plant on account of its large and beautiful foliage, it is merely a shrubby branched annual herb, rarely more than 4 to 5 feet high, with thick, hollow, herbaceous stems, which are cylindrical, smooth and shiny, with a purplish bloom in the upper part.
BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION:
++The joints of the hollow stem, stalks and leaves are reddish to purple.
++Leaf: The handsome leaves are placed alternately on the stem, on long, curved, purplish foot-stalks, with drooping blades, generally 6 to 8 inches across, sometimes still larger, palmately cut for threefourths of their depth into seven to eleven lance-shaped, pointed, coarsely toothed segments. When fully expanded, they are of a blue-green colour, paler beneath and smooth; when young, they are red and shining.The 6 - 11 lobed, palmate leaves with uneven serrated edge, are also red or colored and often have a blue-gray bloom. There is also a green variety.
++The flat seeds are in a seedpod that explodes when ripen.
++Flower:The flowers are male and female on the same plant, and are produced on a clustered, oblong, terminal spike. The male flowers are placed on the under portion of the spike; they have no corolla, only a green calyx, deeply cut into three to five segments, enclosing numerous, much branched, yellow stamens. The female flowers occupy the upper part of the spike and have likewise no corolla. The three narrow segments of the calyx are, however, of a reddish colour, and the ovary in their centre is crowned by deeply-divided, carmine-red threads (styles).All the top of the stem and stalks are the inflorescence with the male - and female flowers. The female flowers are the fuzzy red structures at the top of the flower spike with the male flowers positioned on the lower half, and have conspicuous yellow anthers
++Fruit:The fruit is a blunt, greenish, deeply-grooved capsule less than an inch long, covered with soft, yielding prickles in each of which a seed is developed.The oblong fruit turns brown when ripe. In each seed pod (a capsule) there are three seeds.
++Seed: The seeds of the different cultivated varieties differ much in size and in external markings but average seeds are of an oval, laterally compressed form. The smaller, annual varieties yield small seeds- the tree forms, large seeds. They have a shining, marble-grey and brown, thick, leathery outer coat, within which is a thin, dark-coloured, brittle coat. A large, distinct, leafy embryo lies in the middle of a dense, oily tissue (endosperm). The seeds contain a toxic substance which make them actively poisonous, so much so that three large seeds have been known to kill an adult.The seeds of castor bean or castor oil plant, are very poisonous to people, animals and insects; just one milligram of ricin (one of the main toxic proteins in the plant) can kill an adult. The castor oil is extracted from the beans, which is used for medicinal purposes. Commercially prepared castor oil contains none of the toxin.
PREPARATIONS FOR MARKET:
The seeds are collected when ripe: as the capsules dry, they open and discharge the seeds.
The oil is obtained from the seeds by two principal methods - expression and decoction. The latter process is largely used in India, where the oil on account of its cheapness and abundance, is extensively employed for illuminating, as well as for other domestic andmedicinal purposes.
The oil exported from Calcutta to Europe is prepared by shelling and crushing the seed between rollers. The crushed mass is then placed in hempen cloths and pressed in a screw or hydraulic press. The oil which exudes is mixed with water and heated till the water boils and the mucilaginous matter in the oil separates as a scum. It is next strained, then bleached in the sunlight and stored for exportation.
In France, the oil is obtained by macerating the bruised seeds in alcohol, but the process is expensive and the product inferior.
There are two modes of extracting the oil by expression: (1) without heat, when it is termed 'cold drawn Castor Oil,' this process being largely carried out in Italy, Marseilles, Belgium, Hull and London; (2) with heat, the process generally adopted in America.
Italian Castor Oil, which is of an excellent quality, is pressed from seeds grown chiefly in the neighbourhood of Verona and Legnago. Two varieties of Ricinus are cultivated in these localities, the black-seeded Egyptian and the red-seeded American, the latter yields the larger percentage, but the oil is not so pale in colour. All the Castor Oil pressed in Italy, however, is not pressed from Italian seed, but some seeds are imported from India into Italy - as also into this country.
In the north of Italy, the fresh seeds are alone used, and after they have been crushed and the seed coats very carefully removed with a winnowing machine and by hand, the blanched seeds are put into small hempen bags, which are arranged in superposed layers in a powerful hydraulic press, with a sheet of iron heated to 90 degrees F. between each layer, so as to enable the oil to flow readily, they are finally submitted to pressure in a room, which in the winter is heated to a temperature of about 70 degrees. The oil which first flows is of the finest quality, but an inferior oil is subsequently obtained by pressing the mass at a somewhat higher temperature. The peeled seeds yield about 40 per cent. of oil. After expression, the oil is usually bleached by exposure to sunlight or by chemical means.
In America, where the oil is obtained by expression with heat, the manufacture is conducted on an extensive scale in California. There the seeds are submitted to a dry heat in a furnace for an hour or so, by which they are softened and prepared to part easily with their oil. They are then pressed in a large powerful screwpress, and the oily matter which flows out is mixed with an equal proportion of water, and boiled to purify it from mucilaginous and albuminous matter. After boiling about an hour, it is allowed to cool, the water is drawn off and the oil is transferred to zinc tanks or clarifiers capable of holding from 60 to 100 gallons. In these it stands about eight hours, bleaching in the sun, after which it is ready for storing. By this method, 100 lb. of good seeds yield about five gallons of pure oil.
Of these three varieties of extraction, the Italian or cold drawn is considered the best the East Indian, the poorest, as the mode of purifying by heating with water is considered very imperfect. The former owes its freedom from acridity and unpleasant taste partly to the removal of the seed coats before pressing, and partly to the low temperature used during the manufacture.
CONSTITUENTS:
The seeds contain 50 per cent of the fixed oil, which is a viscid fluid, almost colourless when pure, possessing only a slight odour and mild, yet highly nauseous and disagreeable taste. Its specific gravity is high for an oil, being 0.96, a little less than that of water, and it dissolves freely in alcohol, ether and glacial acetic acid. It contains Palmitic and several other fatty acids, among which there is one - Ricinoleic acid - peculiar to itself. This occurs in combination with glycerine, constituting the greater part of the bulk of the oil. The oil is decomposed by the fat-splitting ferments of the intestinal canal liberating this irritant Ricinoleic acid, to which the purgative action is considered in all probablity to be due.
Both the seeds themselves and the cake left after the expression of the oil are violently purgative, a property which is due to the presence of the highly toxic albumin Ricin. The seeds are never employed in this country on account of their violent action. Ricin exhibits its highest toxicity when injected into the blood. It is of interest to note that the work upon which is based the whole science of Serum therapeutics was carried out by Ehrlich with Ricin. He found that by injecting gradually increasing doses, immunity was established, a condition which he attributed to the formation of an antibody and termed Antiricin.
MEDICINAL ACTIONS AND USES:
Castor Oil is regarded as one of the most valuable laxatives in medicine. It is of special service in temporary constipation and wherever a mild action is essential, and is extremely useful for children and the aged. It is used in cases of colic and acute diarrhoea due to slow digestion, but must not be employed in cases of chronic constipation, which it only aggravates whilst relieving the symptoms. It acts in about five hours, affecting the entire length of the bowel, but not increasing the flow of bile, except in very large doses. The mode of its action is unknown. The oil will purge when rubbed into the skin, or injected. It is also used for expelling worms, after other special remedies have been administered.
The only serious objections to the use of Castor Oil are its flavour and the sickness often produced by it. The nauseous taste may be disguised by administering it covered by Lemon oil, Sassafras oil and other essential oils, or floating on Peppermint or Cinnamon water, or coffee, or shaken up with glycerine, or given in fresh or warmed milk, the dose varying from 1 to 4 teaspoonsful. Probably the best way, however, is to administer it in capsules. Small repeated doses may be given in the intestinal colic of children.
It may also be made into an emulsion with the yolk of an egg or mucilage; or with orange-wine or gin.
Castor Oil forms a clean, light-coloured soap, which dries and hardens well and is free from smell. It has been recommended for medicinal use. The inferior qualities of the oil are frequently employed in India for soap-making.
Externally, the oil has been recommended for various cutaneous complaints, such as ringworm, itch, etc. The fresh leaves are used by nursing mothers in the Canary Islands as an external application, to increase the flow of milk.
The oil varies much in activity - the East Indian is the more active, but the Italian has the least taste.
Castor Oil is an excellent solvent of pure alkaloids and such solutions of Atropine, Cocaine, etc., as are used in ophthalmic surgery. It is also dropped into the eye to remove the after-irritation caused by the removal of foreign bodies.
'Castor Oil is finding increasing uses in the industrial world. It figures largely in the manufacture of the artificial leather used in upholstery; it furnishes a colouring for butter, and from it is produced the so-called 'Turkey-red' oil used in the dyeing of cotton textures. It is an essential component in some artificial rubbers, in various descriptions of celluloid, and in the making of certain waterproof preparations, and one of the largest uses is in the manufacture of transparent soaps. It also furnishes sebacic acid which is employed in the manufacture of candles, and caprylic acid, which enters into the composition of varnishes, especially suitable for the polishing of high-class furniture and carriage bodies. One of its minor uses is in the manufacture of fly-papers.' - 'West India Committee Circular.' (Quoted in The Chemist and Druggist.)
SOURCES:
>>http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Castor%20Bean%20Plant.html
>>http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/c/casoil32.html
>>http://ntbg.org/plants/plant_details.php?plantid=11833
>>http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-herbs/castor.html
>>http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/plant/ricinus.htm
>>http://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/eafrinet/weeds/key/weeds/Media/Html/Ricinus_communis_(Castor_Oil_Plant).htm
>>http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plmar99.htm
>>http://herbs.indianmedicinalplants.info/index.php/home/69-eranda-ricinus-communis-
>>http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy../Ricinus_communis.html
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_oil_plant
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