Notwithstanding the celebrity thus conferred on the spice, and the fact that the latter gives its name to a large tract of country,[1982] and is still the object of a considerable traffic, the tree itself is all but unknown to science. Meissner places it doubtfully under the genus Nectandra, with the specific name cinnamomoides, but confesses that its flowers and fruits are alike unknown.[1983]
The spice, for an ample specimen of which we have to thank Dr. Destruge, of Guayaquil, consists of the enlarged and matured woody calyx, 1½ to 2 inches in diameter, having the shape of a shallow funnel, the open part of which is a smooth cup (like the cup of an acorn), surrounded by a broad, irregular margin, usually recurved. The outer surface is rough and veiny, and the whole calyx is dark brown, and has a strong, sweet, aromatic taste, like cinnamon, for which in Ecuador it is the common substitute.
Dr. Destruge has also furnished us with a specimen of the bark, which is in very small uncoated quills, exactly simulating true cinnamon. We are not aware whether the bark is thus prepared in quantity.
CORTEX BIBIRU.
Cortex Nectandræ; Greenheart Bark, Bibiru or Bebeeru Bark.
Botanical Origin—Nectandra Rodiæi Schomburgk—The Bibiru or Greenheart is a large forest tree,[1984] growing on rocky soils in British Guiana, twenty to fifty miles inland. It is found in abundance on the hill sides which skirt the rivers Essequibo, Cuyuni, Demerara, Pomeroon and Berbice. The tree attains a height of 80 to 90 feet, with an undivided erect trunk, furnishing an excellent timber which is ranked in England as one of the eight first-class woods for shipbuilding, and is to be had in beams of from 60 to 70 feet long.
History—In 1769 Bancroft, in his History of Guiana, called attention to the excellent timber afforded by the Greenheart or Sipeira. About the year 1835 it became known that Hugh Rodie, a navy surgeon who had settled in Demerara some twenty years previously, had discovered an alkaloid of considerable efficacy as a febrifuge, in the bark of this tree.[1985] In 1843 this alkaloid, to which Rodie had given the name Bebeerine, was examined by Dr. Douglas Maclagan; and the following year the tree was described by Schomburgk under the name of Nectandra Rodiæi.[1986]
Description—Greenheart bark occurs in long heavy flat pieces, not unfrequently 4 inches broad and ³/₁₀ of an inch thick, externally of a light greyish brown, with the inner surface of a more uniform cinnamon hue and with strong longitudinal striæ. It is hard and brittle; the fracture coarse-grained, slightly foliaceous, and only fibrous in the inner layer. The grey suberous coat is always thin, often forming small warts, and leaving when removed longitudinal depressions analogous to the digital furrows of Flat Calisaya Bark ([p. 353]), but mostly longer. Greenheart bark has a strong bitter taste, but is not aromatic. Its watery infusion is of a very pale cinnamon brown.
Microscopic Structure—The general features of this bark are very uniform, almost the whole tissue having been changed into thick-walled cells. Even the cells of the corky layer show secondary deposits; the primary envelope has entirely disappeared, and no transition from the suberous coat to liber is obvious.
The prevalent forms of the tissue are the stone-cells and very short liber-fibres, intersected by small medullary rays and crossed transversely by parenchyme or small prosenchyme cells with walls a little less thickened, so as to appear in a transverse section as irregular squares or groups. The only cells of a peculiar character are the sharp-pointed fibres of the inner liber, which are curiously saw-shaped, being provided with numerous protuberances and sinuosities.