During a search of his home in the ensuing investigation, police found that Hughes had cultivated thousands of castor beans from homegrown castoroil plants.
The plants grow wild along highways and in other spots in the U.S. They are also considered ornamental by some gardeners and are cultivated for medicinal castoroil and other products.
If you eat eight castoroil pods raw you will ingest enough ricin to kill you, in the same way as all sorts of other toxins you can get from poisonous plants.