Many years ago, probably twenty or more, I wrote a column about the Caster Bean plant, Ricinus communis. When the big ricin scare hit the Capital two weeks ago, I decided, since ricin is the deadly poison produced by the castor bean, that it might an interesting subject to tackle again. I couldn't remember much about my original column, but I knew I'd grown a castor bean and had spent several hours drawing it for my illustration. Providing these columns with an appropriate picture is a problem in the winter, so I liked the idea of having one on hand.
I found the old black and white illustration, put it in the scanner and sent it to my Photo program to see if I could color it. What fun! I hit all those black leaves and turned them into green ones at the click of my mouse. Making the stems dark brown was a little trickier, but eventually I managed and was even able to color the new growth an appropriate scarlet.
Then I went looking for the original column. Much to my chagrin, it turned out to be a piece of fluff that rambled on about grandchildren and moles and contained very few facts about the castor bean or its dangerous ricin. And of course here I am doing it again, rambling on about illustrations and old columns. I'm afraid that's my style. What's a dandelion without some fluff? OK, the facts.
Having just read a description in the WSJ of the symptoms of ricin poisoning - severe respiratory failure, internal bleeding, destroyed organs - I was horrified by my own description of two-year-old Brittany taking a nap under my giant castor bean tree. Admittedly it is only the beans of this plant that contain ricin, but in my column I actually made light of the dangers involved, saying that my grandchildren had no bad memories of being forced to swallow a spoonful of caster oil, a custom that vanished even before Sesame Street came along.
Castor oil doesn't contain dangerous amounts of ricin, but the waste pulp produced as a byproduct of processing the beans does contain the poison. A single teeny milligram of ricin about the size of the head of a pin, can kill if inhaled or swallowed. Remember that Bulgarian who was assassinated back in 1978 when a man stabbed him with a dose of ricin hidden in his umbrella? Suddenly the picture of granddaughter Brittany playing under my giant castor bean tree was positively scary! There is no cure or antidote for ricin poisoning.
Fortunately a castor bean seed planted in New England must be treated as an annual. It will never live long enough to produce flowers or fruits. By September some of mine had grown to be nine feet tall with handsome lower leaves as big as cookie sheets, but they turned into ugly black scarecrows when frost hit. Hank had to cut them down with the chainsaw as their stems were as big around as soup cans. In tropical climates castor bean plants are trees, some growing to a height of 40 feet. Their flowers have no petals and their fruits are clusters of prickly green balls of coated seeds.
You must be wondering why in tarnation I ever wanted to grow a castor bean. I'd read somewhere that these plants would keep moles out of the garden. The moles on Locust Hill have always preferred the gardens to the lawns, choosing to make bubbles of air under the roots of peppers or peonies instead of plowing up ripples of soil in the grass. I'd tried stuffing their tunnels with moth balls, which proved to be a dismal failure. I hated the idea of using strychnine, the other recommended solution, but was unaware of the deadly ricin in caster beans, even more dangerous than strychnine.
Not many catalogs carried castor bean seeds, but I found them in Mellinger's in North Lima, Ohio and ordered a packet. I planted half a dozen seeds at the edge of the vegetable garden in full sun. They were marvelously exotic looking, but they didn't stop the moles. A cat is a much better method to eliminate the mole problem. Of course then you usually get a new problem - your cat proudly bringing her dead moles into the house.
Trying to make this column a little less fluffy, I went on the Web just now and asked Google about castor beans. I was amazed to find several catalogs that carried the seeds, and several bulletin boards chatting about them, how fast they grow, how beautiful their leaves. Not a word about the bean's toxicity.
I suspect that after last week's news of deadly ricin powder being found in the Senate office building, it will be hard to find anyone selling them in the future. According to what I've read this time around, the seeds are not dangerous, even if swallowed, provided their coating remains unbroken, but if you want to try growing a few, I suggest you order them quickly, before the government bans them.
