Wild cinnamon is an attractive, small to medium-sized, very slow-growing evergreen shrub or tree with a dense crown; it can reach a height of 15 metres. The short bole can be 12 - 20cm in diameter.
The plant is harvested from the wild for local use as a food flavouring and medicine. It is sometimes grown as an ornamental, valued especially for the numerous bright red berries it bears.
Cinnamon bark is a salt tolerant large evergreen shrub or small tree native of Florida and tropical America. Red showy flowers cover the tree in summer and fall followed by bright red berries clustered near the tips of branches. Thick, obovate to spatulate shaped leaves fill the dense canopy with a dark green color. The trunk grows straight up the center of the canopy and develops thin branches that grow to no more than about 4 feet long.
Succeeds in the tropics and subtropics, usually in drier areas.
Requires a well-drained soil.
All parts of the plant are fragrant.
The flowers are bisexual but they mature their male and female organs at different times. Thus they are functionally unisexual, because normally all flowers on a plant are at the same stage (either male or female) at any given time.
If the flowers are dried and then rehydrated in warm water, they emit a musk aroma.
