16-2 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Canclln alha b(trl\ a native of the Antilles, cultivated in our con- 

 servatories and in most hot countries. It is a small tree, all the 

 parts of which are very aromatic and glabrous. The leaves are 

 simple, alternate, exstipulate, covered with pellucid glandular dots. 

 The flowers are placed at the ends of the branches in bunches 

 of ramified, often dichotomous cymes. The secondary axes of the 

 bunch arc axillary either to the highest leaves on the branch (fig. 

 211), or to more or less caducous bracts which succeed the normal 

 leaves. Thus the inflorescence as a whole constitutes a sort of 

 th^-rse or panicle. 



C. axillaris,^ which grows in Brazil, has become the type of a 

 special genus, under the name Cinnamodendron,^ because its perianth 

 is lined with a certain number of flattened petaloid scales,^ and 

 its flowers, instead of being collected at the summit of the branches, 

 are grouped into short bunches, in the axils of the leaves themselves. 

 Otherwise the flower presents nearly the same general organization. 

 The corolla consists of four or five imbricated leaves. The scales 

 within these are equal, or nearly equal, in number, alternate with 

 them, and caducous. There are a score of stamens in the androceum, 

 and the unilocular ovary contains four or five pluriovulate placentas. 

 The fruit is a polyspermous berry, with a gelatinous pulp sur- 

 rounding the seeds. Another species of the same genus, C. corticosiim 

 MiERS," grows in the Antilles. Its bunches are also lateral, or axillary, 

 few flowered. The flowers, far larger than in the preceding species, 

 are pentamerous. The corolla is doubled with five small obovate im- 

 bricated scales. The androceum consists of a score of stamens, and 

 the one-celled ovary contains from three to five parietal placentas, 

 supporting an indefinite number of descending ovules. These two 

 species are small aromatic trees, with alternate exstipulate leaves. 

 The genus may be defined as Canella, with terminal flowers, and 

 the perianth doubled with appendages of contested morphological 

 significance. 



In a new genus, of similar organoleptic properties, but belonging 



' NeE3 & Maht., 'Nov. Act. Acad. Caesar., ^ These organs (glands or staminodes ?) are the 



xii. 18, t. 3. — Spix & Mabt., Reise, i. 83 ; ii. true petals in the opinion of Bentham & 



336. Hooker. The number varies somewhat: it is 



' ExDL., Oen., n. 1029. — Miers, Ann. of often the same as that of the more external 



Nat. Jlisl.jSer. 3, i. '6o0; Conirih., i. 118, t. leaves which we have just described as the pieces 



21.— B. II., Gen., 121, n. 2. — H. Bn., Adamonia, of a corolla. 



VII, 



11, fi7. ■• Contrib., i. 121, n. 2, t. 24 B. 



