Classical Greek name for cinnamon.
Description: Evergreen trees and shrubs. Leaves mostly opposite, thick and 3-veined from the base, strongly aromatic. Flowers bisexual with 6 petals. Stamens 12 (3 of which are sterile). Fruit a 1-seeded berry. c. oliveri f.m. Bailey, Oliver's Sassafras, is sometimes grown in New South Wales coastal gardens; it has more or less opposite wavy-edged leaves smelling of Sassafras that are a striking bronze-red at first.
The primary source of cinnamon spice is the dried bark of C. verum Blume from S India and Sri Lanka; it is not grown in SE Australia. C. camphora is a source of commercial camphor.
Seeds and semi-hardwood cuttings.
About 300 species, mostly tropical and subtropical, from E Asia and Indomalesia (5 species occur in Australia).
Source: (1997). Lauraceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.