222 
ON THE LAURUS CASSIA. 
the appearance of the plant as represented in the figure, for if 
any dependence is to be placed on the description, it is im- 
possible to admit it into the genus. On this however, I do 
not feel disposed to place much reliance, as it was not the 
practice a century ago, when the description was written, to 
examine the structure of flowers with the same care that is 
now bestowed. Should it be objected, that the species I 
quote as the C. perpetuo florens is clothed with yellowish 
pubescence, which is not mentioned by Burman, then I have 
another from the same country (Ceylon) perfectly glabrous, 
agreeing in the form of its leaves, but differing in havingmore 
numerous and smaller flowers, which may be substituted, and 
that I do not think, more than the other, a variety of the 
genuine cinnamon 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 by Nees himself, Cinnamomum triers', 
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. Zeylanicum: 
neither can I agree with him in thinking the plant figured un- 
der the name of Laurus Cassia in the " Botanical Maga- 
zine," 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 applied, if that name is 
still to be retained in botanical nomenclature, as being the 
only one of the three associated speciesknown to produce that 
drug. To another plate of the "Botanical Magazine" {Laurus 
Cinnamomum, No. 2028) I also refer here, and feel greatly 
at a loss to account for its introduction into that work under a 
different name from the preceding. The plant which Nees 
formerly considered the Laurus Cassia, but now calls Cin- 
namomum aromaticum, from China, is a very nearly allied 
species, but is distinct, and furnishes much of the bark sold in 
the European markets under the name of Cassia, though it 
has nothing whatever to do with the Laurus Cassia of Lin- 
naeus, which, from the preceding history, appears strictly confin- 
