palma Christi

English

Etymology

From Latin palma Christi, “palm of Christ.”

Noun

palma Christi (uncountable)

1. The castor oil plant, Ricinus communis.
   • 1614, Gervase Markham, chapter 7, in The Second Booke of the English Husbandman‎^[1], London: John Browne, pages 45–46:

     […] but if you finde that their encrease and continuance multiply with your labour, it shall be then good for you to plant in diuers places of your Garden the hearbe called Palma Christi, in other places Garlicke and in other places Onyons, and it is an assured rule that no Moale will come néere where they grow for the strength and violence of their smell, is poysonous and deadly to those blinde vermines.

   • 1773, John Hawkesworth, chapter 12, in An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty: for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere‎^[2], volume 3, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, page 709:

     Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went ashore upon the island, which they found not to be more than five hundred yards long, and one hundred broad; yet there was a house upon it, and a small plantation, where among other things was the Palma Christi, from which the castor oil is made in the West Indies […]

   • 1857, David Livingstone, chapter 3, in Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa‎^[3], London: John Murray, page 64:

     They have never been known to fight, and, indeed, have a tradition that their forefathers, in their first essays at war, made their bows of the Palma-Christi; and, when these broke, they gave up fighting altogether.

   • 1937, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 2, in Their Eyes Were Watching God‎^[4], University of Illinois Press, published 1978, page 26:

     The cooling palma christi leaves that Janie had bound about her grandma’s head with a white rag had wilted down and become part and parcel of the woman.