VI 
CINNAMON 
225 
Cinnamomum Tamala, Mes., Tajpat. — A cinnamon 
tree growing in the Himalayas, East Bengal, Khasiya 
Hills, and Burma, which supplies one of the barks 
known as Cassia lignea or cassia cinnamon, and its 
leaves are also used as a spice by the natives of India 
under the name of Tajpat. The leaves were known as 
a drug under the name Tamal patra very early, and are 
described and figured by Garcia, Historia aromatum 
(1693). 
Cinnamomum ohtusifoliumj an allied plant, is 
also known by the same native name and used for the 
same purposes. Dr. Watts says that C. Tamala is 
most likely to yield the taj or tajpat of the North-West 
Provinces and Punjab, but in Bengal the leaves and 
bark of C. obtusifolium, Nees, bears this name. 
Mukerji describes [Handbook of Indian Agri- 
culture) its cultivation in Bengal. He says that though 
it is a native of the Himalayas, at 3,000 to 7,000 ft. 
altitude, it grows very well at Sibpur in shady localities, 
and the tree is worth growing in moist and well shaded 
localities, as the use of tajpat as a spice is almost 
universal in India. A couple of small trees supply all 
the tajpat needed for one family. The tree should be 
propagated from seed imported from Sylhet. Seedlings 
should be grown in seed beds, and in two or three years 
transplanted into fields 10 ft. apart. 
The leaves can be plucked after the fifth year, and 
the tree goes on yielding for fifty or a hundred years. 
But as the shed leaves are just as aromatic, if not more 
so, than the green leaves, stripping off green leaves, 
which weakens the tree, is not necessary. 
The leaves are used as a spice in India in curries, and 
those of C. Tamala are also employed in calico printing 
in combination with Myrobalans. The bark is also 
used in dyeing in Chutia Nagpur, as an auxiliary with 
Mallotus Philippinensis. About 33 tons of leaves and 
^ Cinnamomum ohtusifoUum, Nees, is believed by some botanists to be the wild 
plant from which the Chinese cassia, Cinnamomum cassia, is derived by cultiva- 
tion (see under Cassia Bark). 
Q 
