Leaves obovate-oblong, rounded or pointed at apex, gradually narrowed to the long cuneate base, remotely serrate, usually above the middle only, with small glandular teeth, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 5′—6′ long and 1½′—2′ wide; turning scarlet in the autumn before falling; petioles stout, wing-margined above, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers 3′—3½′ in diameter, appearing about the middle of September, on short stout pedicels at first pubescent, finally glabrous, from the axils of crowded upper leaves, and marked by the broad conspicuous scars of 2 minute lateral subfloral pubescent bractlets; sepals nearly circular, ½′ in diameter, ciliate on the margins, and covered on the outer surface with short lustrous silky pale hairs; petals obovate, crenulate, white, membranaceous, 1′—1½′ long and 1′ broad, and densely coated on the outer surface with fine pubescence; filaments distinct, inserted on the petals; ovary conspicuously ridged, pubescent, truncate, and crowned with a slender deciduous style nearly as long as the stamens. Fruit globose, slightly pubescent, ¾′ in diameter, the valves splitting nearly to the middle and septicidally from the base to the middle; seeds 6—8, or by abortion fewer in each cell, closely packed together on the whole length of the thick axile placenta, nearly ½′ long, angled by mutual pressure, without wings.
A tree, 15°—20° high, with stout slightly angled dark red-brown branchlets covered with small pale oblong horizontal lenticels, and conspicuously marked by large prominent obcordate leaf-scars, with a marginal row of large fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds compressed, reddish brown, puberulous, ¼′—⅓′ long. Bark of cultivated plants smooth, thin, dark brown.
Distribution. Near Fort Barrington on the Altamaha River, Georgia; not seen in a wild state since 1790, and now only known by cultivated plants.
Often cultivated in the eastern states and hardy as far north as eastern New York and occasionally in eastern Massachusetts, and rarely in western and central Europe.
XLII. CANELLACEÆ.
Trees, with pungent aromatic bark, and alternate pellucid-punctate entire penniveined persistent leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect, regular, cymose; sepals and petals imbricated in the bud; stamens numerous, hypogynous, with filaments united into a tube inclosing the pistil, and narrow extrorse anthers adnate to the tube and longitudinally 2-celled; pistil of 2—3 united carpels; ovary free, 1-celled, with 2—5 parietal placentas; styles thick; stigmas 2—5-lobed; ovules 2 or many. Fruit a berry; seeds 2 or several; seed-coat thick, crustaceous; embryo small in fleshy oily albumen.
The Wild Cinnamon family with five genera and a few species is confined to tropical America, south Africa and Madagascar, one species reaching the shores of southern Florida.
1. CANELLA P. Br.
A tree, with scaly bark, stout ashy gray branchlets conspicuously marked by large orbicular leaf-scars, and minute buds. Leaves obovate, rounded or slightly emarginate at apex, gradually narrowed to the cuneate base, petiolate, coriaceous. Flowers small, in many-flowered subcorymbose terminal or subterminal panicles of several dichotomously branched cymes from the axils of upper leaves or from minute caducous bracts; sepals 3, suborbicular, concave, coriaceous, erect, their margins ciliate, persistent; petals 5, hypogynous, in a single row on the slightly convex receptacle, oblong, concave, rounded at apex, fleshy, twice as long as the sepals, white or rose color; stamens about 20, staminal tube crenulate at the summit and slightly extended above the anthers; ovary cylindric or oblong-conic, 1-celled, with 2 parietal placentas; style short, fleshy, terminating in a 2 or 3-lobed stigma; ovules numerous, arcuate, horizontal or descending, attached by a short funicle, imperfectly anatropous; micropyle superior. Fruit globose or slightly ovoid, fleshy, minutely pointed with the base of the persistent style, 2—4-seeded. Seeds reniform, suspended; seed-coat black and shining; embryo curved in the copious albumen; cotyledons oblong; radicle next the hilum.