^34 



l^cmarJcs 07i Laurus Cassia. 



[Jan. 



when the description was written, to examine the stracture of flowers 

 with the same care that is now bestowed. Should it be objected, that 

 the species I quote {\\q. C. perpetuo jlorens is clothed witli 3TII0W- 

 ish pubescence, which is not mentioned by Burman, then I have another 

 £Vom the same country (Ceylon) perfectly glabrous, agreeing in the form 

 of its leaves, but differing in having more numerous and smaller flowers, 

 which may be substituted, and that I do not think, more than the other, a 

 variety of the genaine cinmimon tree. 



The Malabar plant Carua (Hort. Mai. 1. tab 57), on the other hand, I 

 consider a very passable figure of a plant, in my herbarium named, b}'' 

 Nees himself, Cinnaviomum iners ; but, whether or not I am right in the 

 species to which I have referred it, I can have no hesitation in giving it 

 as my opinion that it is not referable to any form of the C. Zeyianlcum ; 

 neither can I agree with him in thinking the plant figured under the 

 name of Laurus Cassia in the Botanical Magazine No. 1636 is referable 

 to the Ceylon species, but is I think very like the Malabar one, 

 the only species of the genus to which the name Cassia should be ap- 

 plied, if that name is still to be retained in botanical nomenclature, as 

 being the only one of the three associated species known to produce 

 that drug. Another plate of the Botanical Magazine {Laurus Cinanio- 

 mum'No. 2028) 1 also refer here, and feel greatly at a loss to account 

 for its introduction into that work under a diffi^renfc name from the pre- 

 ceding. The plant which Nees formerly considered the Laurus Cassia, 

 but now calls C'nnaymmum aromatlcum, from China, is a very nearly 

 allied species, but is distinct, and furnishes much of the bri'k sold in 

 the European markets under the name of Cassia, tho'it has noihing what- 

 ever to do with the Laurus Cassia of Linnaeus, which, from the preceding 

 history appears strictly confined to Ceylon and India proper, and that 

 name, not being referable to any one species, ought unquesfi ;nably to 

 be expunged from botanical nomenclature, its longer contiu'iunce there 

 only tending to create confusion and uncertainty. This brings me to 

 the next question — namely, what plant or plants yield the Cassia bark of 

 commerce ? 



The foregoing explanation, in the course of which two plants are re- 

 ferred to as yielding Cassia, greatly simplifies the answer to this one. 

 The first of these is the Malabar Carua figured by Rheede, the second 

 Nees' Cinnamomumaromaticum. The list, however, of Cassia producing 

 plants is not limited to these two, but I firmly believe extends to nearly 

 every species of the genus. A set of specimens, submitted for my ex- 

 amination, of the trees furnishing Cassia on the Malabar Coast, presented 

 no fewer than four distinct species ; including among them the genuine 



