Ricinus communisL.

castor bean

WFO wfo-0000297077 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Ricinus communis, photographed by Pablo
fig. a Pablo, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205463077
Ricinus communis, photographed by Juan Cruzado Cortés
fig. b Juan Cruzado Cortés, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 203341251
Ricinus communis, photographed by Cricket Raspet
fig. c Cricket Raspet, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204305423
Ricinus communis, photographed by Pablo
fig. d Pablo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205448189
Ricinus communis, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. e Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204062921
Ricinus communis, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. f Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204054887
Ricinus communis, photographed by Ryan Donnelly
fig. g Ryan Donnelly, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201921215
Ricinus communis, photographed by Dave Richardson
fig. h Dave Richardson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202178908

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 1,639 observations

Peak flowering in Oct, from 1,639 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 214 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cataputia major Ludw.
  • Cataputia minor Ludw.
  • Croton spinosus L.
  • Ricinus africanus Mill.
  • Ricinus angulatus Thunb.
  • Ricinus armatus Andrews
  • Ricinus atropurpureus hort. ex Pax & K.Hoffm.
  • Ricinus badius Rchb.
  • Ricinus borboniensis hort. ex Pax & K.Hoffm.
  • Ricinus cambodgensis Benary
  • Ricinus communis f. americanus Müll.Arg.
  • Ricinus communis f. argentatus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. argyratus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. atratus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. atrobrunneatus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. atrofulvatus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. atrofuscatus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. atrophoeniceus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. atropunicatus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. atropurpureatus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. avellanatus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. blumeanus Müll.Arg.
  • Ricinus communis f. canatus T.Carvalho
  • Ricinus communis f. canescens T.Carvalho

and 190 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.