CHAPTER XIII.

405

A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE CINNAMON-DESCRIPTION OF THE TREE-METHODS OF CULTIVATION-MANNER OF STRIPPING OFF THE BARK-PACKING ON BOARD SHIP-QUALITIES -PLACES WHERE IT GROWS-QUANTITY EXPORTED-CINNAMON OIL-LABOURERS-BEAUTY OF THE PLANTATIONS.

THE cinnamon tree, laurus cinnamomum, or coorundoo of the Cingalese, is a species of laurel of the monogynia order, and enneandria class of plants; "foliis trinerviis ovato-oblongis: nervis versus apicem evanescentibus."

The trees, in their uncultivated state, grow to the height of from twenty to thirty feet. The trunk is about three feet in circumference, and puts out a great number of large spreading horizontal branches, clothed with thick foliage. The roots are fibrous, hard, and tough, covered with an odoriferous bark, on the outside of a greyish brown, and on the inside of a reddish hue. They strike about three feet into the earth, and spread to a considerable distance.

Many of them smell strongly of camphire, which is extracted from them.

The leaves are of an oval shape, from four to six inches in length, and from two inches to two and three quarters in breadth, of a smooth surface, and plain edge. They are strongly marked by three principal nerves, which, with four smaller, all take their rise from the pedicule. The middle nerve stretches to the point of the leaf. The two others nearly bissect each half of it lengthwise. The four smaller radiate, in a corresponding manner, towards the edge of the leaf. From these an innumerable quantity of diminutive fibres spread in all directions, completing the texture of the leaf. The stalk of it, which is nearly three quarters of an inch in length, is very pleasant to eat, and when chewed flavours strongly of cinnamon, but is fresher. and more full of juice. The leaf itself has scarcely any taste. When the young leaves first shoot out from the tops of the branches they are partly of a bright red, and partly of at pale yellow hue. After a short time they become of a beautiful pea green, and when they have attained full maturity they put on a dark olive colour. The upper surface is of a deep, and the back of the leaf of a light, green. They shoot out from the stalks, directly opposite to one

another.

The blossoms grow on slender foot-stalks, of a pale yellow colour, from the axillæ of the leaves, and extremity