Poisonous Castor Oil plant

The Castor Oil plant ( Ricinus communis ) can potentially kill an adult human after consuming just four to eight seeds. All parts of the plant are poisonous, but the seed have the highest concentration of poison. It contains some of the strongest toxins in the plant kingdom: the alkaloid ricinin as well as the toxalbumin ricin. These are more toxic than cyanide. It causes a painful death. Symptoms typically occur between 2-4 hours but can be delayed up to 36 hours. Symptoms include a burning sensation in the mouth, nausea, vomiting, stomach ache, diarrhea, headache, cold sweat, fever, disorientation, sleepiness, hypotension, tachycardia ( abnormally fast resting heart rate ), shortage of breath and seizures, followed by collapse and death. This is the plant that castor oil is made from. The toxins can be extracted through a complicated process, making commercially cold pressed castor oil safe to humans in normal doses, both internally and externally.
The castor oil plant is a fast growing perennial shrub that can reach around 12 metres tall. With glossy large palm-shaped leaves with 7-9 coarsely toothed segments, cluster-like blossoms and prickly fruits, that contain large oval, shiny, bean like poisonous seeds.
If you’ve got this plant in your garden I recommend removing it, by wearing rubber gloves, and chopping it down and digging out the roots, because as well as being poisonous it spreads to become a weed.

If you’ve got this in your garden I would recommend removing it.