Species: Cinnamomum burmannii
English Name: Batavia Cinnamom
Chinese Name: 陰香
Family: Lauraceae
Description:
Trees, up to 14 m tall, to 30 cm d.b.h. Bark smooth, gray-brown to dark brown outside, red inside, cassia-scented. Branchlets green or brown-green, slender, striate, glabrous. Leaves alternate or subopposite, rarely opposite; petiole 0.5-1.2 cm, plano-convex, subglabrous; leaf blade glaucous green and opaque abaxially, green and shiny adaxially, ovate or oblong to lanceolate, 5.5-10.5 × 2-5 cm, leathery, glabrous on both surfaces, triplinerved, midrib and basal lateral veins very elevated abaxially, conspicuous adaxially, basal lateral veins arising 3-8 mm above leaf base, evanescent toward leaf apex, transverse veins and veinlets somewhat elevated on both surfaces, ± reticulate, base broadly cuneate, apex shortly acuminate. Panicle axillary or subterminal, shorter than leaf, (2-)3-6 cm, few flowered, lax, densely gray puberulent, branched, apex of branch bearing a 3-flowered cyme. Pedicels slender, 4-6 mm, gray puberulent. Flowers green-white, ca. 5 mm. Perianth densely gray puberulent outside and inside; perianth tube short, obconical, ca. 2 mm; perianth lobes oblong-ovate, acute. Fertile stamens 9, ca. 2.5 mm (of 1st and 2nd whorls) or ca. 2.7 mm (of 3rd whorl); filaments puberulent, those of 3rd whorl each with 2 subsessile globose glands, others glandless; anthers oblong, 4-celled; cells introrse (of 1st and 2nd whorls) or extrorse (of 3rd whorl). Staminodes 3, narrowly triangular, ca. 1 mm, stalked; stalk ca. 0.7 mm, puberulent. Ovary subglobose, ca. 1.5 mm, somewhat puberulent; style ca. 2 mm, angled, somewhat puberulent; stigma discoid. Fruit ovoid, ca. 8 × 5 mm; perianth cup in fruit ca. 4 mm, apex ca. 3 mm wide, dentate, teeth truncate. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Oct-Nov.
© 2011 Forest and Kim Starr
© 2011 Forest and Kim Starr
Photos used under a Creative Commons license
References:
Wu ZY, Raven PH, Hong DY (eds) (2008). Flora of China, Volume 7: Menispermaceae through Capparaceae. Science Press, Beijing, and Missouri Bot Garden Press, St. Louis