CANELLACE^E 753 



ridged, pubescent, truncate, and crowned with a slender deciduous style nearly as long as 

 the stamens. Fruit globose, slightly pubescent, f ' in diameter, the valves splitting nearly 

 to the middle and septicidally from the base to the middle; seeds 6-8, or by abortion 

 fewer in each cell, closely packed together on the whole length of the thick axile pla- 

 centa, nearly \' long, angled by mutual pressure, without wings. 



A tree, 15-20 high, with stout slightly angled dark red-brown branchlets covered with 

 small pale oblong horizontal lenticels, and conspicuously marked by large prominent 

 obcordate leaf-scars, with a marginal row of large fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds 

 compressed, reddish brown, puberulous, |' |' long. Bark of cultivated plants smooth, 

 thin, dark brown. 



Distribution. Near Fort Barrington on the Altamaha River, Georgia; not seen in a wild 

 state since 1790, and now only known by cultivated plants. 



Often cultivated in the eastern states and hardy as far north as eastern New York and 

 occasionally in eastern Massachusetts, and rarely in western and central Europe. 



XLH. CANELLACE^). 



Trees, with pungent aromatic bark, and alternate pellucid-punctate entire penniveined 

 persistent leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect, regular, cymose; sepals and petals 

 imbricated in the bud; stamens numerous, hypogynous, with filaments united into a tube 

 inclosing the pistil, and narrow extrorse anthers adnate to the tube and longitudinally 

 2-celled; pistil of 2-3 united carpels; ovary free, 1-celled, with 2-5 parietal placentas; styles 

 thick; stigmas 2-5-lobed; ovules 2 or many. Fruit a berry; seeds 2 or several; seed-coat 

 thick, crustaceous; embryo small in fleshy oily albumen. 



The Wild Cinnamon family with five genera and a few species is confined to tropical 

 America, south Africa and Madagascar, one species reaching the shores of southern Florida. 



1. CANELLAP.Br. 



A tree, with scaly bark, stout ashy gray branchlets conspicuously marked by large orbicu- 

 lar leaf-scars, and minute buds. Leaves obovate, rounded or slightly emarginate at apex, 

 gradually narrowed to the cuneate base, petiolate, coriaceous. Flowers small, in many- 

 flowered subcorymbose terminal or subterminal panicles of several dichotomously branched 

 cymes from the axils of upper leaves or from minute caducous bracts; sepals 3, suborbicular, 

 concave, coriaceous, erect, their margins ciliate, persistent; petals 5, hypogynous, in a single 

 row on the slightly convex receptacle, oblong, concave, rounded at apex, fleshy, twice as 

 long as the sepals, white or rose color; stamens about 20, staminal tube crenulate at the 

 summit and slightly extended above the anthers; ovary cylindric or oblong-conic, 1- 

 celled, with 2 parietal placentas; style short, fleshy, terminating in a 2 or 3-lobed stigma, 

 ovules numerous, arcuate, horizontal or descending, attached by a short funicle, imper- 

 fectly anatropous; micropyle superior. Fruit globose or slightly ovoid, fleshy, minutely 

 pointed with the base of the persistent style, 2-4-seeded. Seeds reniform, suspended: 

 seed-coat black and shining; embryo curved in the copious albumen; cotyledons oblong: 

 radicle next the hilum. ' 



The genus consists of a single West Indian species, extending into southern Florida and 

 to Venezuela. 



The generic name is from canefla, the diminutive of the Latin cana or canna, a cane or 

 reed, first applied to the bark of some Old World tree from the form of a roll or quill which 

 it assumed in drying. 



1. Canella Winterana Gsertn. Cinnamon Bark. White Wood. Wild Cinnamon. 



Leaves contracted into a short stout grooved petiole, 3^'-5' long and l'-2' wide, bright 

 green and lustrous. Flowers about f ' in diameter, opening in the autumn. Fruit ripen- 

 ing in March and April, bright crimson, soft and fleshy, \' in diameter; seeds about fV 

 long. 



A tree, in Florida 25-30 high, with a straight trunk 8 '-10' in diameter, and slender 



