Dr Wight on the Laurus Cassia of Llnnoius. 27 



the general result, and Ave at once see the impossibility of 

 awarding to any one individual species the credit of being the 

 source whence the Cassia Lignea of commerce is derived, and 

 equally the impropriety of applying to any one of them the com- 

 prehensive specific appellation of Cassia, since all sorts of cin- 

 namon-like plants, yielding bai4i of a quality unfit to bear the 

 designation of cinnamon in the market, are passed off as cassia. 



Observations on Cinnamon. By Henry Marshall, F.R.S.E., 

 Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals. 



Mr Marshall's paper on Cinnamon, referred to in Dr Wiglit's remarks, 

 was read at tlic Royal Society in March 1817, having been communicated 

 by the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks ; and it was published iu the 

 Annals of Philosophy for the months of October and November of the 

 same year. The following is a brief abstract of ]\Ir jMarshall's communi- 

 cation, and some new facts, with which he has favoured us. 



The cinnamon-tree (Laurus cinnamomumj is indigenous in the islands 

 of Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo, the Sooloo Archipelago, the Nicobar and 

 Philippine Islands, Cochin China, and the Malabar Coast of the Peninsula 

 of India, &c. ; and it has been cultivated in Brazil, Guiana, the Isles of 

 Bourbon and Mauritius, the West India Islands, Egypt, &'c. 



The tree grows to the height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and the stem 

 to a diameter of from twelve to fifteen inches. The young leaves have a 

 scarlet-crimson colour. The bark of the shoots is often beautifully 

 speckled with dark green and light orange colours. The leaves, when 

 full grown, are from six to nine inches long, and from two to three broad. 

 The flowers appear in January and February, and the seeds ripen iu June, 

 July, and August. The odour of the flowers resembles the disagreeable 

 smell which emanates from bones when they are sawn. Unless when 

 flowering, the tree emits no smell. 



It is alleged that there is a number of varieties of the cinnamon-tree in 

 Ceylon, to which native names have been given ; but hitherto it lias not 

 been satisfactorily demonstrated that more than one species of the Laurel 

 genus, which yields an aromatic bark, grows there. The distinctive 

 marks of the supposed varieties commonly consist of some slight differ- 

 ence of the shape of the leaves, or of the taste of the bark, neither of 

 which is by any means conclusive evidence of a specific distinction. 



Bufililoes, cattle, goats, deer, and horses, eat the leaves, and pigeons 

 and crows devour the berries with great avidity. The tree is disseminated 

 to a great extent, even in the most impassable jungles, by means of these 

 birds, as the germinating quality of the seeds is not destroyed by their 

 sloniacli.s. 



There is, perhaps, no part of the world iu which the cinnamou-trcc 



