26 CANELLA ALBA 



placentas. Fruit a berry, about \ inch long, rounded-ovoid, 

 fleshy, when ripe blue-black, glossy, supported at base by the 

 persistent calyx, shortly pointed at apex. Seeds 2 to 4, immersed 

 in mucilage, somewhat irregular in form, roundish-reniform or 

 angular from pressure, testa black, shining, brittle, hilum minute, 

 inner coat membranous, thick ; embryo small, very excentric, 

 curved, lying at the upper end of a copious fleshy endosperm, 

 radicle thick, near the hilum. 



Habitat. This is a native of the wooded hills of Jamaica, 

 Cuba, and other of the West Indian Islands, the Bahamas, and 

 the south of Florida, forming, when well grown, a handsome tree 

 with abundant laurel-like foliage. The flowers have an exquisitely 

 sweet aromatic smell, due to the secretion in the glands studding 

 the ovary. It is in cultivation in our Botanic Gardens, but has 

 not flowered at Kew. In Nees' figure above quoted, the flowers 

 are coloured scarlet, probably from confusion with Oinnamo- 

 dendron. 



Miers, Contrib. Bot., i, p. 112 ; Swartz, in Trans. Linn. Soc., i, 

 p. 96 ; Grisebach, PI. Brit. W. Indies, p. 109 ; Chapman, Fl. 

 South. States, p. 43; Lindl., PI. Med., p. 116. 



Official Part and Name. CANELLA ALB^E CORTEX ; the bark 

 (B. P.). The bark (I. P.). CANELLA; the bark (U. S. P.). 



Collection and Commerce. It is said to have been collected 

 formerly by first removing the entire bark with an iron instrument, 

 then depriving it of a portion of its external cellular coats, and dry- 

 ing the remaining bark in the shade. But from recent information 

 communicated to Hanbury, it appears that it is now collected in the 

 Bahama Islands, where it is called white wood bark or cinnamon 

 bark, as follows : Preparatory to being stripped from the wood, 

 the bark is gently beaten with a stick, which removes the suberous 

 layer ; by a further beating, the remaining bark is separated, 

 and having been peeled off and dried, is exported without further 

 preparation. It is shipped to Europe from Nassau, in New 

 Providence. 



General Characters and Composition. Canella alba bark occurs 



