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castor-oil plant
(redirected from castor bean plant)

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castor-oil plant

Tall tropical and subtropical shrub belonging to the spurge family. The seeds, called ‘castor beans’ in North America, yield the purgative castor oil (which cleans out the bowels) and also ricin, one of the most powerful poisons known. Ricin can be used to destroy cancer cells, leaving normal cells untouched. (Ricinus communis, family Euphorbiaceae.)



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Other ideas included moth balls, shoving finely crushed glass down the holes (ugh), planting a castor bean plant (its roots are supposedly poison to gophers), or sticking a couple of those lawn pinwheel figures by the holes because the gophers can't stand the vibrations they cause when spinning in the wind.
GUM UP THOSE PESKY GOPHERS' PLANS by Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Inquiries were spurned by news reports linking the al Qaeda terrorist group to a northern Iraq laboratory suspected of producing ricin toxin, a byproduct of the widely available castor bean plant.
Field Test for Ricin Toxin Available from Osborn Scientific; Company ... by Business Wire
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