CANELLACEvE, 



SILVA OF NOIiTH AMEBIC A. 



35 



CANELLA. 



Flowers perfect, regular; sepals 3, inabricated, persistent; petals 5, imbricated ; 

 stamens monadelplious. Fruit baccate, indebiscent, 2 to 4-seeded. 



L 



Canella Browne, Nat. Sist. Jam. 275, t. 27, f. 2, 3. — Meis- "Winterania, Linn^us, Syst. ed. 10, 10-15, Appx. 13G6 ; Gen. 

 ner Gen. 42. — Endliclier, Gen. 1029. — Bentham & ed. 6, 238. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 263. 



Hooker, Gen. i. 121. — Baillon, Hist. PI. \. 191. 



A tree, with scaly aromatic bark, stout asby gray brancblets conspicuously marked with large 

 orbicular lea£-scars. Leaves petiolate, alternate, destitute of stipides, penniveined, entire, pellucid-punc- 

 tate coriaceous. Flowers arranged in a many-fiowered subcorymbose terminal or subterminal panicle 

 composed of several dichotomously branched cymes from the axis of the upper leaves or of miuute cadu- 

 cous bracts. Sepals suborbiculate, concave, coriaceous, erect, their margins ciliate. Petals hypogynous, 

 in a sino-le row on the slightly convex receptacle, oblong, concave, rounded at the extremity, fleshy, 

 twice the length of the sepals, white or rose-colored. Stamens about twenty, hyi^ogynous, the filaments 

 connate into a tube crenulate at the summit, and slightly extended above the linear anthers, which are 

 adnate to its outer face, and longitudinally two-vaived. Ovary free, included in the andrcecium, cylin- 

 drical or oblong-conical, one-ceUed, with t^^'o parietal placentas, few-ovuled ; style short, fleshy, the sum- 

 mit t^vo or tbree-lobed, stigmatic ; ovules arcuate, horizontal or descending, imperfectly anatropous, 

 attached by a short funiculus. Fruit globular or slightly ovate, fleshy, minutely pointed with the base 

 of the persistent style. Seeds renlform, suspended ; testa thick, crustaceous, shining black ; tegmen 

 soft, membranaceous. Embryo curved, near the summit of the copious oleo-fleshy albumen, its radicle 



next the hilum j cotyledons oblong. 



The genus, consisting of a single species/ is West Indian, extending to southern Florida and to 



The wood of CaneUa is very heavy and exceedingly hard, strong and close-grained, with numerous 

 thin inconspicuous medullary rays ; it is dark red-brown, the thick sapwood consisting of twenty-five to 

 thirty layers of annual growth, light brown or yellow. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood 

 grown in Florida is 0.9893, a cubic foot of the dry wood weighing 61.65 pounds. 



The pale inner bark of Canella, under the name of Cortex Candlw albc, furnishes an aiwatic 

 stimulant and tonic.^ It has a pleasant cinnamon-like odor, and a bitter acrid taste. It is now 



1 A second species (Flee, Herb. Mus. Paris, No. 720) from 

 Maraeaibo in Venezuela, described by Jliers as Canella ohtusifoUa 

 {Contrih. i. 118, t. 23, B.), is probably, as Baillon suggests, a vari- 

 ety of C. alba, from whieli it differs principally in its shorter leaves 

 and in the shorter terminal inflorescence, ternately branched. The 



flowers have not been seen. 



2 Canella bark is now principally obtained from the Bahama Isl- 

 ands. Preparatory to the stripping, the bark is generally beaten 

 with a stick for the purpose of removing the suberous outer layer ; 

 the inner bark is then separated by a further beating, peeled off and 

 dried, and is then ready for export without further preparation. 

 (Flilckiger & Ilanbury, Pharmacograpkia, G8.) 



The dnig was first described in 1605 by Cluslus in the Exotlco- 

 rum Libri Decern. (Canella alba quorundam, 78 ; Lignum aromatlcum, 

 323 ; Lignum seu potlus Cortex aromatkus, 324), by Parkmson m 

 1640 in the Theatrum Botankum {Canella alba, 1581), and by J. 

 Bauhin in 1650 in the Historia Planiarum Universalis (Canella foho 

 n,ali punica^, i. Hb- 4, 455 ; Lignum aromaiicum seu potius cortex Mo- 

 nardes i. lib. 4, 460 ; Canella alba quorundam, i. hb. 4, 401, also 

 Kav Hist PI- ii- 1S02). It was early confounded with the bark of 

 Drimys Winteri, a native of Patagonia, and was sold as Wmter's 

 bark previous to 1693. (Dale, Pkarmacologia, 432.) It was well 

 described by Pierre Pomet in 1694 (Hist. Gen. Drog.m^J^o pub- 

 lished a fanciful portrait of the tree. According to Pomet the bark 



