Canella, wild-cinnamon, cinnamon-bark

Laurus winterana Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 371. 1753; Canella alba Murray

Leaf blade 5-15 × 2-5cm, apex rounded or blunt; abaxial surface pellucid-dotted. Flowers ca. 7 mm diam., pedicel short; sepals green, 2-3 mm, fleshy; petals deep red to magenta, basally light red to yellow, 4.5-6 mm, thick and fleshy; anthers light red, becoming yellow at anthesis; stigma yellow. Seeds 1-5, black. 2 n =28. [P. Goldblatt 1976]

Flowering spring-summer (mid-May-Jul). Coastal thickets, hammocks, commonly found on limestone or calcareous soils; 0-3 m; Fla.; West Indies; ne South America.

Although flowers of Canella winterana are bisexual and protogynous (with the gynoecium of each flower functionally mature before the androecium), they are functionally unisexual, because normally all flowers on a plant are at the same stage (either male or female) at any given time (T. K. Wilson 1986). Canella winterana is locally abundant in some areas, but with the clearing and development of the Florida Keys, it is becoming less common except in protected areas, such as Everglades National Park. Nurseries in extreme southern Florida occasionally market canella. It is an attractive, small- to medium-sized, very slow-growing tree.