VI 



CINNAMON 217 



stroying the leaves. Though abundant on wild or full- 

 sized trees, it would probably do little harm in the 

 cultivated state of the plant ; as the shoots are constantly 

 being cut on an estate, insect and fungus pests have less 

 chance of establishing themselves than in a tree, where 

 the leaves are left on for a long time. 



Cattle, goats, and squirrels are also recorded as 

 occasionally doing damage by eating or nibbling the 

 shoots. 



Galls. Doctors W .and J. van Leeuwen-Reijnvaan, 

 in the Annales du Jar din Botanique,vol. xxiii. p. 120, 

 plates xxiv., xxv., figure and describe cinnamon leaves 

 infected with galls due to a mite known as Eriophyes 

 doctersi, Nal. The animal seems only to attack the 

 true cinnamon, and it appears to occur in many parts of 

 Java. The galls generally appear on the lower side of 

 the leaf, rarely on the upper side, but they are also found 

 on the leaf-stalk and twigs ; when the plant is badly 

 affected the terminal and axillary buds are attacked, 

 and the whole shoot is twisted up. They seem to be 

 most injurious to young plants. The galls are in the 

 form of blunt, hollow cones, and are often densely 

 crowded upon the leaves, quite destroying them. This 

 class of gall, very abundant in the tropics, is very 

 troublesome to deal with. Infected leaves should be 

 removed and burnt, and badly attacked, seedlings should 

 be destroyed. 



Fungi. Pestalozzia cinnamomi, Raciborski. This 

 minute leaf fungus is described in the Bulletin Institut 

 Botanique de Buitenzorg, vol. vi. p. 13, as attacking 

 twigs and leaves of cinnamon. No account of the 

 injury caused by it is given. 



Corticium javanicum. This fungus, which has 

 obtained more notoriety as a pest on the Para rubber tree 

 than on any other plant, occasionally attacks cinnamon 

 shoots, as it does all manner of woody plants, in the wet 

 season. It forms a pale pinkish-white crust on the 

 stems of plants, destroying the cambium layer and 

 causing the death of the shoot or twig. This fungus is 



