Adjacent Words

castor-oil plant definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: large shrub of tropical Africa and Asia having large palmate leaves and spiny capsules containing seeds that are the source of castor oil and ricin; widely naturalized throughout the tropics [syn: castor-oil plant, castor bean plant, palma christi, palma christ, Ricinus communis]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1836 a tropical Old World herb (Ricinus communis) widely grown as an ornamental or for its oil-rich castor beans

Britannica Concise

Large plant (Ricinus communis) of the spurge family, probably native to Africa and naturalized throughout the tropics. It is grown commercially for the pharmaceutical and industrial uses of its oil and for use in landscape gardening because of its handsome, giant, fanlike leaves. The bristly, spined, bronze-to-red clusters of fruits are attractive but are often removed before they mature because of the poison concentrated in their mottled, beanlike seeds. There are hundreds of natural forms and many horticultural varieties of this species.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Palma Christi Pal"ma Chris"ti [L., palm of Christ.] (Bot.) A plant (Ricinus communis) with ornamental peltate and palmately cleft foliage, growing as a woody perennial in the tropics, and cultivated as an herbaceous annual in temperate regions; -- called also castor-oil plant. [Sometimes corrupted into palmcrist.]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Castor oil Cas"tor oil (k[a^]s"t[~e]r oil`). A mild cathartic oil, expressed or extracted from the seeds of the Ricinus communis, or Palma Christi. When fresh the oil is inodorous and insipid. Castor-oil plant. Same as Palma Christi.