Creature 244: Ricinus communis

The most deadly plant in the world?

Ricinus communis is commonly known as the Castor oil plant.

It is a widely cultivated garden plant and is kept for it beauty despite the fact that it is very deadly. According to the Guinness book of records it is the most deadly plant in the world,  however this is debatable.

The beans of the plant carry a toxin called ricin, the same one made famous in Breaking Bad. Eight beans are said to be enough to kill most people. The toxin ricin interferes with protein synthesis. Basically it stops almost every metabolic process in your body and you slowly die. The poison normally  kills within a week. Ricin is not undetectable and it is not untreatable.  If treatment is available the patient will usually survive. The symptoms vary from case to case but they can be a lot more severe than they seem to be in breaking bad. It is fairly hard to detect if you don't know what to look for.

Distribution:
The Castor oil plant is native to North East Africa and India but grows wild throughout the tropics and is widely cultivated.

Classification:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Angiosperms
Class: Dicotyledon
Order: Malpighiales
Family: Euphorbiaceae
Genus: Ricinus
Species: Ricinus communis

Image Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_oil_plant

http://www.barstoolsports.com/philadelphia/philly-area-teen-sends-ricin-laced-birthday-card-to-ex-girlfriends-new-piece/

http://kertesz.blog.hu/2014/11/12/halalos_novenyek_kezkozelben

Creature 5: Rafflesia arnoldii

A really big parasitic flower

Description: 

Rafflesia arnoldii is a plant with a large unusual looking flower from the south-east Asian islands. It is the largest flower in the world, not counting composite flowers. It can grow over 1 meter in diameter and weight over 10 kilograms. Instead of offering a sweet reward in the form of nectar to attract insect pollinators it has adopted a different strategy. It emits a smell like a rotting corpse which attracts the flesh eating insects which act as their pollinators. The plant is completely parasitic and does not produce chlorophyll of its own. When it is not flowering the entire plant is made up of thin parasitic threads living on other plants and absorbing their nutrients. The flower takes 9 months to mature but it only flowers for 5-7 days.

Distribution:

Rafflesia arnoldii is known from the Islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

Classification:

Note here that there are many botanists who don't recognise plant phyla or classes, because traditional grouping at these levels have apparently been shown not to be monophyletic (see my Linnean classification page). They also seem to be unable to erect natural groups at these higher levels which do need meet fierce opposition among botanists. Instead they erect divisions which are based on certain characteristics. I'm not a botanist myself, but I will use old plant phyla and my own variation of the classes in my classifications because it makes thing simpler. In my own variation use an Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. I accept their monocots group as Monocotyledon and interpret their Eudicots as Dicotyledon. I will cross any other bridges as I come to them.

Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Angiosperms

Class: Dicotyledon

Order: Malpighiales

Family: Rafflesiaceae

Genus: Rafflesia

Species: Rafflesia arnoldii

Image Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafflesia_arnoldii#mediaviewer/File:Rafflesia_sumatra.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/h1dkeUB.jpg

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/2452253