What's this alien looking plant?
August 10, 2008 8:22 AM   Subscribe

IdentifyThisPlantFilter: We have a garden plot at a local county park, and there is one plot behind us that is growing these. Any Idea what they are? We live in Maryland (Zone 7).
posted by ShawnString to Home & Garden (11 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
castor beans, very poisonous
posted by buggzzee23 at 8:46 AM on August 10, 2008


They're castor beans!
posted by shrabster at 8:46 AM on August 10, 2008


here's the link I missed
posted by buggzzee23 at 8:48 AM on August 10, 2008


Castor bean.

A collection of the seeds of this plant and a Muslim surname could earn you a long, all expenses paid vacation in an exotic locale.
posted by jamjam at 9:04 AM on August 10, 2008


By growing, do you mean "cultivating?" I'm not sure why anyone would want to grow castors, unless they were plotting on killing someone with Ricin. (I'm half-kidding: they're apparently actually a pretty common crop for their oil, though I'm not totally clear on what it's for.)

Wikipedia has a page on Castors.

Not so much for you, but for the sake of those who might stumble upon this: if you're on Flickr, join the What plant is that? group and add your unidentified plant photos, and tag them with "unidentifiedplant" so they'll show up here where they're identified. I've had mixed luck: a couple semi-obscure plants got identified, but no one's been able to identify my birch tree yet. ;)
posted by fogster at 9:05 AM on August 10, 2008


Alright, my comment, on the heels of jamjam's, makes me worried that you're going to call the FBI on your plot-neighbor. Please check out the Wikipedia page, which discusses their legitimate (non-ricin-stockpiling) uses, before doing so.

But whatever you do, be nice to your plot-neighbor.
posted by fogster at 9:07 AM on August 10, 2008


They were a common decorative plant here in SoCal when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, but their popularity waned during the 70s and only a few plants remained in my neighborhood by the time the 1980s rolled around. I travel highway 38 through the San Bernardino Mountains several times a week and have noticed quite a few plants growing wild in the lower elevations (below 6000 feet) between Barton Flats and Mentone.

The wikipedia article is dead on about the bean being the perfect slingshot ammo.
posted by buggzzee23 at 9:22 AM on August 10, 2008


The wikipedia article is dead on about the bean being the perfect slingshot ammo.

Interesting!

Possibly because the plant itself shoots them out:

When ripe, the spiny capsule dries and splits along its three sutures (seams). The sutures usually split rapidly and the explosive force flings the seeds several feet away. [From my link]

I wonder if the shape of the seeds embodies some kind of aerodynamic tricks to make them go farther.
posted by jamjam at 9:48 AM on August 10, 2008


I live in Maryland too (Baltimore), and those plants are everywhere. I had no idea they're castor plants. They grow as weeds in neglected lots, at the corners of people's yards, in between cracks in pavement, you name it. There are some growing up against my garage, from my neighbor's side, right now.

If anyone around here called the FBI, or the even more overworked Baltimore police department, because of the growth of this ubiquitous plant, I feel pretty sure the response would be laughter. Unless maybe we were talking acres of it.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 11:59 AM on August 10, 2008


Yeah, my husband almost died when he was younger because some "friends" of his told him they were figs and he ate some.
posted by konolia at 1:11 PM on August 10, 2008


Castor bean is a legitimate and common decorative landscape plant. It's used a lot in public spaces because it's a striking color and grows fairly huge.

The War on Terra canard that anyone who grows these has maleficent intent is a load of bollocks. Ricin (the poisonous compound - think Aum Shin Rikyo), is a protein. To extract a protein from raw plant material, while concentrating its toxicity and not denaturing it or otherwise making something fairly nasty - but still a long way from a bioweapon - is not child's play. I suppose if one is a trained organic chemist with a proper lab and... well, I guess, not even then, necessarily.

And ya know, if I were to go out to the park up the street and pull some of the seedpods off the plant, grind them up in my coffee grinder, and then throw the oil mash around my house, I guess my place would have "traces of ricin" all over it. So don't rat out your neighbor, please, unless, hmmm.. just how close to Fort Detrick are you?
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 5:28 PM on August 10, 2008


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