Castor is a pretty garden plant with an oil that has been used for millennia. But did you know it got it’s common name from a beaver?

When I wrote about growing colorful castor (Ricinus communis) in the warm season garden I started wondering about this whole name thing.  Long time readers may have figured out that I have a curious mind and often go off on tangents in my curiosity. So inquiring minds want to know – why is it called castor, and why is it called Ricinus? Why do we call plants what we call them? And some of you all may wonder – why do we need scientific names to confuse us?

Names of Plants

You all reading this know what I mean when I say the plant name “rose.” Even if I said it in Spanish, “rosa,” you would probably understand me. But if I said “shoshannah,” how many would know what plant I was talking about?

Scientific names for things were devised to help us accurately share our knowledge as we move around the globe and across languages. These scientific names are agreed upon by all scientists in the world. Just how those agreed upon names came about is a bit of an interesting tale.

Naming Castor

Castor was a useful plant, and it grew in many lands, thus it had many names. Most of them lost in the sands of time. Not just castor, but all plants had many names. Since plants have chemicals in them that also happen to have health or healing properties, plants were once critical for life. They were traded as commodities. Over 90 percent of all drugs on the market today began their life as plant chemicals. To make these plant chemicals unique and thus patent-able, the pharmaceutical chemists add a hydrogen group or something similar, something supposedly innocuous. But I digress.

Since these plants had many names, it was often hard to know exactly which medicinal plant you were buying. As populations grew, specialist called doctors came into being. They tried to learn all the medicinals that would help their patients. To share knowledge, books called Herbals were written. Perhaps most famous of these was “The Herbal” first published in a series of volumes by John Gerard in 1597. We will come back to why it is “famous.”  Gerards Herbal was written in English and the crude illustrations of the plants were in black and white.  

How Castor Got It’s Name

Scientific Name

Castor was given the scientific name Ricinus communis by Carl Linnaeus. He was later called “the Father of Botanical Nomenclature.” But how did he get that sobriquet? How did he come to be the one that got to name plants?

The long answer.

Father of Nomenclature As A Kid

Born in 1707, Carl was the first child of Nicolaus (Nils) Ingemarsson (who later adopted the family name Linnaeus) and Christina Brodersonia. Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister, and the curate of the small village of Stenbrohult in Sweden. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius.

Growing up in a family that didn’t have to scrabble in the dirt for their livelihood, Carl got to read avidly, and to explore the world outdoors. He tried to make sense of it all. Carl roamed the countryside staring at flowers, looking at pond water under a microscope, and reading all the classics, which in those days was things like Plato’s Republic, as well as the writings of Cato and Cicero. He read these in Latin, because that was the language of scholarship.

Young Carl kept a garden journal and he read all the herbals and zoological materials he could lay his hands on.  He was not pleased with how “disorganized” they all were. In modern parlance we would say that Carl was “on the spectrum.” Pretty far out there on the spectrum perhaps.

Make It Make Sense

Along with trying to tidy up the chaos and lack of order seen in the scholastic world, like in Gerard’s Herbal, Carl set out to make it all make sense, to create some coherent organization to plants especially.

Carl liked names that made sense. He named plants after some notable quality that they exhibited. In the case of castor, Carl looked at the seeds. The seeds have these mottled markings, a bump at one end. To him, this looked a great deal like the European ticks that he also discovered in his childhood rambles. The Latin word for tick is ricinus, so that is what he named the genus. And communis is Latin for common or ordinary.

The Short Answer

The secret to Carl being the Father of Nomenclature is that he didn’t publish yet another Herbal. He published an organized and simplified list of plants, his “Species Plantarum.” And he organized his species into groups the we call “genus” today. These were surprisingly well organized groups – ones that have stood the test of centuries and even modern DNA testing for the most part.

Meanwhile, Gerard’s Herbal, that large and ungainly work, persists today only because in the 1780’s Thomas Newton MD went back through it, added the “modern” Latin names that had come into use and updated some of the herb uses. He also appended the book with a number of additional other helpful herbs.

Zoological Nomenclature

Meanwhile, over in zoology, there is also a genus Ricinus. The name is used for an insect that is a parasites of birds. Even thought they are named after ticks, this Ricinus isn’t a tick either, it’s a genus of lice. By the way, ticks are not insects – they have too many legs. More about insects.

Two things named Ricinus?! Yes, this is possible because the names of animals and plants are governed by different nomenclature codes. Annoying to people that deal in both, but “legal” in the taxonomic sense.

One difference between botanical and zoological nomenclature is that zoology allows for double names but botany does not. In zoology we have names like Bison bison, and Gallus gallus.

 

Jin Sato named one of his chickens Galli because the scientific name for chicken is Gallus gallus, “… because it sounds like gallop-gallop.” He says that it’s a cheerful name that always makes him smile. Now that I have read that book, the name always makes me smile too. Have you ever watched chickens gallop?!

Castor as a Common Name

Now to the castor common name question! The common name “castor oil” is said to come from people using the oil as a replacement for castoreum. Castoreum is a compound made from the dried perineal glands beavers. It was mostly used as a perfume base. The Latin word for beaver is castor. Scientific name too, Castor fiber.

Other Common Names for Castor

There are common names for the castor plant. One other common name, palm of Christ, or Palma Christi, is based upon the “Doctrine of Signatures” This is the belief that every plant bears a sign or signature of what it is to be used for. That large, hand-shaped leaf is believed to signify that the hand of Christ is upon this plant and the oils in it.

Castor oil is reputed ability to heal wounds and cure ailments. And the oil will cure you, if your ailment is constipation. If you decide to nibble on the plant itself, then you will get to meet your maker, so I guess that works too.

False Castor

The houseplant known as “false castor plant” is Fatsia japonica. It’s not closely related at all, as a member of the Aralia Family. It’s not safe to eat either, but there’s a whole ‘nother post.

Using Castor

For more on how castor was and is used, visit Castor Use on Savor the Southwest. The Native Seri still use the plant today. There are also many other uses around the world, in industry, in medicine, and in the making of beauty products.

Since castor plant could be considered an herb, in this – his birthday week – let me mention my book on Father Kino’s Herbs.

About 50 NEW copies left!

The last few copies of this out-of-print award winning Southwestern book are now for sale. Father Kino’s Herbs: Growing and Using Them Today   The review says:

“Award-winning garden writer Dr. Jacqueline A. Soule has pulled together a fascinating book on the life of Father Eusebio Francisco Kino and some of the plants that he brought to Southern Arizona and northwestern Sonora, and area called the Pimeria Alta.”

This link is to our sales site. The profits from the sale go to the local Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute.  We hope you will help support this great Southwest non-profit!

Legal Notes

© Article copyright Jacqueline A. Soule // Gardening With Soule. All rights reserved. You must ask permission to republish an entire blog post or article. Okay to use a short excerpt but you must give proper credit. You must include a link back to the original post on our site. No stealing photos.

Disclaimer

The authors of this website have researched the edibility of the materials we discuss, however, humans vary in their ability to tolerate different foods, drinks, and herbs. Individuals consuming flowers, plants, animals or derivatives mentioned in this blog do so entirely at their own risk. The authors on this site cannot be held responsible for any adverse reaction. In case of doubt please consult your medical practitioner.