FREE: Castor Bean Seeds

The listing, Castor Bean Seeds has ended.

Up for your consideration, 10 castor bean plant seeds. This is a beautiful plant.

WARNING: This plant is toxic and you should be wary of planting this if you have small children or animals.

The castor plant is a robust annual that may grow 6 to 15 feet (2-5 meters) in one season with full sunlight, heat and adequate moisture. In areas with mild, frost-free winters it may live for many years and become quite woody and tree-like. The large, palmately lobed leaves may be over 20 inches (50 cm) across and resemble a tropical aralia. There are several cultivated varieties with strikingly different foliage colorations, including black-purplish, dark red-metallic, bronze-green, maroon, bright green with white veins, and just plain green. Although it grows very rapidly with little care or insect pests and produces a mass of lush tropical foliage, its use in cultivation should be discouraged because of the extremely poisonous seeds or "beans." This is particularly true where small children might be attracted to the large, beautifully-mottled seeds which are produced in prodigious numbers.


The castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. It belongs to a monotypic genus, Ricinus, and subtribe, Ricininae. The evolution of castor and its relation to other species is currently being studied.[1]

Its seed is the castor bean which, despite its name, is not a true bean. Castor is indigenous to the southeastern Mediterranean Basin, Eastern Africa, and India, but is widespread throughout tropical regions (and widely grown elsewhere as an ornamental plant).[2]

Castor seed is the source of castor oil, which has a wide variety of uses. The seeds contain between 40% and 60% oil that is rich in triglycerides, mainly ricinolein. The seed contains ricin, a toxin, which is also present in lower concentrations throughout the plant.