Cinnamomum
Encyclopedia
Cinnamomum is a genus of evergreen aromatic trees and shrubs belonging to the Laurel family, Lauraceae
Lauraceae
The Lauraceae or Laurel family comprises a group of flowering plants included in the order Laurales. The family contains about 55 genera and over 3500, perhaps as many as 4000, species world-wide, mostly from warm or tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia and South America...

. The species of Cinnamomum have aromatic oils in their leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 and bark. The genus contains over 300 species, distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

, South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, Oceania
Oceania ecozone
Oceania is one of the WWF ecozones, and unique in not including any continental land mass. The ecozone includes the Pacific Ocean islands of Micronesia, the Fijian Islands, and most of Polynesia...

 and Australasia
Australasia ecozone
The Australasian zone is an ecological region that is coincident, but not synonymous , with the geographic region of Australasia...

. The genus Cinnamomum includes a great number of economically important trees.

Habitat

They are leafy canopy trees to understorey trees or shrubs in lowland rainforest to high elevation in wet evergreen montane tropical rainforests, in laurel forest
Laurel forest
Laurel forest is a subtropical or mild temperate forest, found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable and mild temperatures. They are characterized by tree species with evergreen, glossy, enlongated leaves, known as laurophyll or lauroide...

 habitat generally between 600 and 2000 m.

Lauraceae are common in wet forest from sea level to the highest mountains, but are poorly represented in areas with a pronounced dry season.
Cinnamomum need a ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

 of high humidity, type cloud forests
Cloud forest
A cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and...

. cinnamomum is present about tropical or subtropical mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...

s, where the dense moisture
Moisture
Humidity is the amount of moisture the air can hold before it rains. Moisture refers to the presence of a liquid, especially water, often in trace amounts...

 from the sea or ocean, is precipitated by the action of the relief, causing it to condense part of the moisture that falls as rain or fog, creating an habitat tropical or subtropical especially cool, saturated with moisture in the air and soil.
With no seasonal changes Some Cinnamomum species will survive short frosts and temperatures to 32F, but most species should be protected from hard freezes and prolonged cool weather. Cinnamomum need climate wetter, but with an annual oscillation of the temperature moderated by the proximity of the ocean. Soil need to be ever wet. The natural habitat is forest which are cloud-covered for much of the year. Areas with high humidity and stable and mild temperatures, in a climate regime with well defined seasons, but lacking in sharp contrast. This type of habitat is found in laurel forest
Laurel forest
Laurel forest is a subtropical or mild temperate forest, found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable and mild temperatures. They are characterized by tree species with evergreen, glossy, enlongated leaves, known as laurophyll or lauroide...

 habitats. they are vigorous species with a great ability to populate the habitat that is conducive, forests of cool temperate zones in montane tropical or subtropical forest. This genus is present in Himalayas and other mountain areas and is present in tropical and subtropical montane rainforest, in the Weed-tree forests, in valleys, mixed forests of coniferous, and deciduous broad-leaved trees, from southern China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

.

In the Indian Central Himalaya, the Cinnamomun laurel trees falls within the broad-leaved forests; sub-montane deciduous forests, mid-montane deciduous forests; and high-montane mixed stunted forests. The tree species growing to high altitude forests between 1500–3300 m. The upper limit of forests ranges from 3000 to 3300 m. Three taxa are commonly found at tree line: an evergreen, needle-leaved gymnosperm (Abies pindrow Spach.), an evergreen, broad-leaved sclerophyllous oak (Quercus semecarpifolia Sm.), and a deciduous, broad-leaved birch (Betula utilis Don).
Vernal flowering is common at this elevation in Central Himalaya. In general, in their elevational distribution and structural-functional attributes, these high altitude forests are similar to other forests of cool temperate zones in Himalaya.

Characteristics

All species tested so far are diploid, with the total number of chromosomes being 24.
This Lauraceae genus comprises more than 270 trees and shrubs and most are aromatics
Some trees produce sprouts. The thick, leathery leaves are dark green, lauroide type. Laurophyll or lauroide leaves are characterized by a generous layer of wax, making them glossy in appearance, and narrow, pointed oval in shape with an apical mucro, or 'drip tip', which permit the leaves to shed water despite the humidity, allowing perspiration and respiration from plant. Plants of the laurel forests must adapt to high rainfall and humidity. The trees adapted by developing leaves that repel water.

Mostly the plant present an odour distinct. Alternate leaves are ovate-elliptic, margin entire or occasionally repand, with acute apices and broadly cuneate to subrounded base. Upper leaf surface is shiny green to yellowish green, while the underside is opaque and lighter in color. Mature leaves are dark green. Young leaves reddish brown to yellowish red. The leaves are glabrous on both surfaces or sparsely puberulent beneath only when young; the leaves mostly triplinerved or sometimes inconspicuously five-nerved, with conspicuous midrib on both surfaces. The axils of lateral nerves and veins are conspicuously bullate above, dome-shaped. Terminal buds perulate.

The axillary panicle is 3.5–7 cm long. It is a genus of monoecious species. Hermaphrodite flowers, greenish white, white to yellow are glabrous or downy and pale to yellowish brown. Mostly small flowers. The perianth is glabrous or puberulent outside and densely pubescent inside. The purplish-black fruit is an ovate, ellypsoidal or subglobose drupe. The perianth-cup in fruit is cupuliform. A dark-purple fruit, the berry or drupe.

Selected species

Cinnamomum parthenoxylon
Cinnamomum parthenoxylon
Cinnamomum parthenoxylon known in English as Selasian wood, Saffrol Laurel, or as Martaban camphor wood. It has the outdated heterotypic synonym Laurus porrecta...

, Cinnamomum camphora is a large evergreen tree that can grow to 30 m in height and 3 m in diameter, with a broadly ovate crown. Terminal buds are broadly ovoid or globular, and covered with sericeous scales. Bark is yellowish brown with irregular vertical splits. Branches are light brown, cylindrical, and glabrous.
The inner bark of several species is used to make the spice cinnamon
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both sweet and savoury foods...

. Other notable species are C. tamala
Malabathrum
Malabathrum, also known as Malobathrum or Malabar leaf, is the name used in classical and medieval texts for the leaf of the plant Cinnamomum tamala . In ancient Greece and Rome, the leaves were used to prepare a fragrant oil, called Oleum Malabathri, and were therefore valuable...

, used as the herb malabathrum (also called tejpat and Indian bay leaf), and C. camphora, from which camphor
Camphor
Camphor is a waxy, white or transparent solid with a strong, aromatic odor. It is a terpenoid with the chemical formula C10H16O. It is found in wood of the camphor laurel , a large evergreen tree found in Asia and also of Dryobalanops aromatica, a giant of the Bornean forests...

 is produced.

External links

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