Pharmaceutical castor oil use includes expectorants, anti-dandruff treatments and emulsifiers. Keep castor bean plants fenced to prevent children, pets or livestock from eating the seeds or leaves. How to Grow Ricinus Plants Guide to Growing Castor Oil Plant, Castor Bean and Palma Christi. Not a perfect or excellent job though. It's theoretically possible to poison yourself with castor beans, but it is a lot harder than most people seem to think. The castor bean plant yields high-quality oil suitable for plastics manufacture, cosmetics, polyurethanes, synthetic detergent, inks, lacquers, paint strippers and varnishes. Q: A friend of mine gave me some seeds of castor bean. The plant grows wild all over the United States and is also grown in gardens. Ricinus communis var. It is well-known that castor beans (the seeds of the castor plant) are toxic. I understand the plant is very poisonous but it is beautiful and I would like to grow it. Beans. It is in the same family as Christmas Poinsettias (euphorbia) Castor Beans grow the best and biggest when they are grown in full sun, but they can also be … The seeds from the castor bean plant, Ricinus communis, are poisonous to people, animals and insects.One of the main toxic proteins is "ricin", named by Stillmark in 1888 when he tested the beans' extract on red blood cells and saw them agglutinate. The only member of the genus, Ricinus communis is in the Spurge Family (Euphorbiaceae).The word ricinus is Latin for “tick”, used for this plant name because of the superficial resemblance of the seeds to a particular species of European tick. The castor bean plant, scientifically known as Ricinus communis belongs to the spurge family of flowering plants whose latex have various toxic as well as medicinal properties. Castor beans are the seeds produced by the castor oil plants as a part of their reproductive life cycles and it is these beans from which castor oil is extracted by crushing and processing them. Due to the fact that the entire plant carries high levels Ricin (A deadly poisonous chemical read more here) pests generally stay clear of this plant.