Nature Bulletin No. 503-A   October 20, 1973
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:CASTOR BEANS AND CASTOR OIL

Young Americans of this generation seem to be growing up without 
much personal experience with castor oil. We parents and 
grandparents, however, still shudder at memories of times when, after 
threats or promises, we made a face, closed our eyes, opened our 
mouth and gulped great spoonfuls of the thick oily stuff. Today, 
although more castor oil is produced than ever before, only a tiny 
fraction of it is used as a laxative.

In temperate regions such as ours, the Castor Oil Plant or Castor Bean 
is an annual up to 15 feet tall, a plant that grows anew from its seed 
each year. Nothing is better for a fast-growing ornamental screen 
about your home. In warmer climates it is a perennial, becoming a tree 
30 or 40 feet tall. The leaves are very large, often 20 to 30 inches 
across, deeply cleft and star-shaped with five to twelve points. The 
clusters of flowers are followed by spiny capsules which, when ripe, 
pop open to release three large glossy black or mottled seeds. The 
Romans thought the castor bean seed looked like a blood-filled dog 
tick, so they called it by the same Latin name, Ricinus.

Africa is supposed to be the original home of the wild castor bean. It 
probably became a camp follower of man back in prehistoric times 
when it grew without care about his dwellings long before its 
usefulness was discovered. The ancient Egyptians valued its oil almost 
as highly as that of the olive for their lamps. Over the ages, its 
cultivation spread to many of the warmer countries of the Old World 
and, then, to the New World. It escaped and now runs wild in 
clearings, along roadsides and on dump heaps throughout the tropics 
and subtropics. Both wild and cultivated castor beans are harvested by 
the natives of many parts of the world. The unripe clusters of seed 
capsules are spread on the ground until they dry, split open, and the 
seeds fall out. Then they are winnowed by hand and sold or bartered, 
often in very small quantities. The pomace, or cake remaining after the 
oil is pressed out, is poisonous to livestock but can be used for 
fertilizer.

The total world crop of castor beans is about a billion pounds per year, 
yielding half that poundage of castor oil. The principal producing 
countries are India and Brazil with lesser amounts from other Latin-
American countries, the West Indies, Africa, other parts of Asia, and 
the United States. American manufacturers use about 40 percent of the 
world's crop and import nine-tenths of this. Castor Oil and its products 
have hundreds of industrial uses and chemical research steadily adds 
more. A substantial amount goes into paints, varnishes and lacquers. 
A lipstick, a hair tonic, or a shampoo may contain over one-third 
castor oil. Made into special lubricants for jet engines and racing cars, 
it does not become stiff with cold nor unduly thin with heat. It is made 
into plastics, soaps, waxes, hydraulic fluids and ink. During the war it 
was stockpiled as a strategic material.

The Baker Castor Oil Company of New York is the largest 
manufacturer in the industry and has been through most of its 
hundred-year history. During the past ten years this company has 
promoted the development of low-growing, high yielding castor 
hybrids that produce a ton of beans to the acre; also special machinery 
which allows the American grower to compete in the world market. 
The 18,000 acres now planted to castor beans -- mostly in California, 
Arizona and Oklahoma -- is triple that of last year and, soon, is 
expected to reach 120,000 acres.

Bothered by moles in your lawn? Stick castor beans in their burrows.