Cinnamomum verum, called "true cinnamon", Ceylon cinnamon or Sri Lanka cinnamon is a small evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...

 tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 belonging to the 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...

, native to Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

. Among other species, its inner bark is used to make 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...

.

The old botanical synonym for the tree—Cinnamomum zeylanicum—is derived from Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

's former name, Ceylon.

Cinnamomum verum trees are 10–15 metres (32.8–49.2 feet) tall. The 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....

 are ovate-oblong in shape, 7–18 cm (2.75–7.1 inches) long. The flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s, which are arranged in panicle

Panicle

A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches; in other words, a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes....

s, have a greenish color, and have a distinct odor. The fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 is a purple 1-cm berry

Berry

The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors....

 containing a single seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

.

Species

There are several different cultivars of Cinnamomum verum based on the taste of bark:

• Type 1 Sinhala: Pani Kurundu (පැණි කුරුඳු), Pat Kurundu (පත් කුරුඳු) or Mapat Kurundu (මාපත් කුරුඳු)
• Type 2 Sinhala: Naga Kurundu (නාග කුරුඳු)
• Type 3 Sinhala: Pani Miris Kurundu (පැණි මිරිස් කුරුඳු)
• Type 4 Sinhala: Weli Kurundu (වැලි කුරුඳු)
• Type 5 Sinhala: Sewala Kurundu (සෙවල කුරුඳු)
• Type 6 Sinhala: Kahata Kurundu (කහට කුරුඳු)
• Type 7 Sinhala: Pieris Kurundu (පීරිස් කුරුඳු)

External links

• Health: Ceylon Cinnamon in traditional medicine