are not conspicuously enlarged, but they may be sometimes a little bit stiffer or thicker than they 
were in the flower. As mentioned before, usually they are persistent, although sometimes 
partially so by the abscission of part of them right after anthesis by individual lines above their 
bases. In some species the abscission line is below the tepal base and connected to the next one, 
making a continuous line through which all six tepals are separated as one piece right after 
anthesis. While pedicel, hypanthium, and tepals tend to turn red or reddish as fruit matures, ripe 
berries are dark green or almost black in color. 
Anatomy. 
Reference to the anatomical features of the wood in several species of Cinnamomum can 
be found in the surveys accomplished by Stern (1954) and Richter (1981). Vessels range from ca. 
160-665, in length, with simple and scalariform perforations. Wood fibers are septate in some 
cases. Although in general the wood morphology is similar among the Asian and the Neotropical 
species, bark characters lead to the recognition of three distinct groups (Richter, 1981), one of 
them the New World species. 
Early in this century Petzold (1907) published a study of the anatomical features of leaves 
in the American species of Lauraceae. He did not find clear correlation of characters to 
distinguish genera one from each other, although there were some combinations of traits that 
characterized certain genera. As for Cinnamomum, my survey of 32 of the 47 neotropical species 
confirms the general findings by Petzold, and adds a few more remarks on the variation of 
particular anatomical features of the leaves in this genus. 
All neotropical species of Cinnamomum studied have dorsiventral, hypostomatic leaves, 
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