26 Dr Wight on the Laurus Cassia of Lintueus. 



of the three associated species known to produce that drug. 

 Another plant of the Botanical Magazine {Laurus Cinnamo- 

 mum, No. 2028), I also refer to here, and feel greatly at a loss 

 to account for its introduction into that work under a different 

 name from the preceding. The plant which Nees formerly 

 considered the Laurus Cassia, but now calls Cinnamomum 

 aromaticuni, from China, is a very nearly allied species, but 

 is distinct, and furnishes much of the bark sold in the Euro- 

 pean markets under the name of Cassia, though it has no- 

 thing whatever to do with the Laurus Cassia of Linnseus, 

 which, from the preceding history, appears strictly confined to 

 Ceylon and India proper ; and that name, not being refer- 

 able to any one species, ought, unquestionably', to be expunged 

 from botanical nomenclature, its longer continuance there only 

 tending to create confusion and uncertainty. This brings 

 me to the next question, namely, What plant or plants yield 

 the cassia bark of commerce \ 



The foregoing explanation, in the course of which two plants 

 are referred to as yielding cassia, greatly simplifies the answer 

 to this one. 



The first of these is the Malabar Carua, figm'ed by Rheede ; 

 the second, Necs' Cinnamoinum aromaticum. The list, how- 

 ever, of cassia -producing plants is not limited to these two, 

 but I firmly believe extends to nearly every species of the 

 genus. A set of specimens, submitted for my examination, of 

 the trees furnishing cassia on the Malabar coast, presented no 

 fewer than four distinct species, including among them the 

 genuine cinnamon plant, the bark of the older branches of 

 which, it would appear, are exported from that coast as cassia. 

 Three or four more species are natives of Ceylon, exclusive of 

 the cinnamon-proper, all of which greatly resemble the cinna- 

 mon plant, and in the woods might easily be mistaken for it, 

 and peeled, though the produce might be inferior. Thus we 

 have, from Western India and Ceylon alone, probably not less 

 than six plants producing cassia. Add to these nearly twice 

 as many more species of cinnamomum, the produce of the more 

 eastern states of Asia and the islands of the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago, all remarkable for their striking family likeness, — all, I 

 believe, endowed with aromatic properties, and probably the 

 greater part, if not the whole, contributing something towjirds 



