Family - Lauraceae
Species - Cinnamomum zealanicum Blum.
The Ceylon cinnamon or true cinnamon, is the dried bark of Cinnamomum zealanicum, belongs to the family Lauraceae. It is indigenous to Sri Lanka. Cinnamomum zealanicum is an evergreen perenial plant with spirally arranged, broad laminated dark green leaves having palmate venation.
Under natural conditions, the plant grows to a height of 10 - 15m with the girth of 30-50cm. When coppiced from time to time it could be maintained as bush of 2-2.5m height with multiple stems arising from its base. The flowers are small, creamy and inconspicuous developing into dark purple ovoid one seeded berries, about 1.5 - 2.5cm long.
In Sri Lanka, cinnamon seems to have originated in the central hills where several species of cinnamon occur sporadically in places such as Kandy, Matale, Belihull Oya, Haputale and the Sinharaja forest range. Although cinnamon cultivation is presently concentrated along the coastal belt stretching along from Kaluthara to Mathara, it has also made inroads to the inland of Kalutara, Ambalangoda, Matara and Ratnapura. The extent under cinnamon in Sri Lanka is 25,500ha. Although, the bulk of cinnamon plantations are about 70 - 80 years old, the size of holdings has been diminishing and only about 5-10% of the plantations are of sizeable extent ranging from 8 - 10ha.