ON THJ3 LAURUS CASSIA. 223 
ed to Ceylon and India proper, and that name not being re- 
ferable to any v one species, ought unquestionably to be ex- 
punged from botanical nomenclature, its longer continuance 
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 referred to as yielding Cassia, greatly simplifies the 
answer to this one. The first of these is the Malabar Carua 
figured by Rheede, the second Nee's Cinnamomum aro- 
maticum. The list, however, of Cassia-producing plants is 
not limited to these two, but I firmly believe extends to near- 
ly every species of the genus. A set of specimens, submitted 
for my examination, of the trees furnishing Cassia on the 
Malabar Coast, presented no fewer than four distinct species ; 
including among them the genuine cinnamon plant, the bark 
of the older branches of which, it would appear, is exported 
from that coast as Cassia. Three or four more species are 
natives of Ceylon, exclusive of the cinnamon proper, all of 
which greatly resemble the cinnamon plant, and in the woods 
might easily be mistaken for it and peeled; though the pro- 
duce might be inferior. Thus we have from Western India 
and Ceylon alone, probably not less than six plants producing 
Cassia ; add to these nearly twice as many more species of 
Cinnamomum , the produce of the more Eastern States of 
Asia and the Islands of the Eastern Archipelago, all re- 
markable for their striking family likeness, all I believe en- 
dowed with aromatic properties, and probably the greater 
part, if not the whole, contributing something towards the 
general result, and we at once see the impossibility of award- 
ing to any one individual species the credit of being the 
source whence the Cassia Lignea of commerce is derived ; 
and equally the impropriety of applying to any one of them 
the comprehensive specific appellation of Cassia, since all sorts 
of cinnamon-like plants, yielding bark of a quality unfit to 
bear the designation of cinnamon in the market, are passed off 
as Cassia. — Madras Journal of Literature and Science, 
1S39, No. 22. 
