Botanical Description Of Ricinus communis (Castor)

Botanical Description Of Ricinus communis (Castor)

Habit: Tall perennial shrub

Root: Branched tap root system

Stem: Aerial, erect, cylindrical, branched and hollow, solid at the base, glabrous,

Leaf: Simple, petiolate, hollow, exstipulate, alternate, broad, palmately lobed, usually 7-9 lobes, serrate, palmately reticulate divergent venation.

Inflorescence: Terminal panicle.

Male Flower Bracteate, ebracteolate, pedicellate, male flowers (open for one day) towards lower portion of the inflorescence, actinomorphic, incomplete.

Perianth: Tepals 5, apophyllous, uniseriate, green, valvate aestivation, odd tepal posterior in position.

Androecium: Stamens numerous (upto 1000) crowded and connate into about 8mm long cluster of stipitate phalanges, each stamen profusely branded, anthers globose basifixed.

Gynocium: usually absent rarely represented by pistillode.

Female Flower Bracteate, ebracteolate, pedicellate, female flowers (open for fourteen days) found towards the apical portion of inflorescence, actinomorphic, incomplete and hypogynous.

Perianth: Tepals 3, apophyllous, green valvate.

Androecium: Absent but staminode is present.

Gynoecium: Tricarpellary, syncarpous, ovary superior, distinctly trilobed, trilocular, covered with spiny outgrowth, single large ovule in each locule on axile placentation, style three with three bifid stigma.

Fruit: A schizocarp with spiny outgrowth, splits into three one seeded cocci.

Seed: Endospermous, knob-like caruncle develops from the micorpyle, that absorbs and temporarily retains water enabling germination.

Floral Formula: