EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

The Spice of South Asia

Sacks of cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum, syn. C. zeylanicum), Family Lauraceae
Kerala, India

Explanation:   Ah, the incredible scents and flavors of spices from south Asia!  More specifically, south India.  

I encountered this fellow in the foothills of the Western Ghats mountains of Kerala, outside the city of Trivandrum, toward the bottom tip of India.  His sacks were filled with cinnamon leaves, ready for transport and sale at the market.  

Like so many other spices and foods of the region, cinnamon is derived from a naturalized plant, in this case a low-growing evergreen tree of the botanical family Lauraceae.  The cinnamon spice itself is derived from the inner bark of this tree. It is peeled and then dried into the familiar curled tubes we buy at the store.  It is a key ingredient to flavor many dishes of Kerala, used with other spices of the south.  

But these sacks are filled with leaves, not bark.  Cinnamon leaf is used for an essential oil extract, and is not used as a food spice.  Alleged therapeutic uses of cinnamon oil include providing relief from arthritis, rheumatism, and respiratory infections, and much else.  The tree has been cultivated for over a thousand years