Madeu (Pohnpei cinnamon tree) Cinnamomum carolinense (tentative)
Photos taken in Kipar, Kitti, Pohnpei.
Date collected: 28, Oct. 2000
Where: Kipar, Kitti
By: Dali. W
- Genus/species: Cinnamomum carolinense
- family name: Lauraceae
- English name: caroline cinnamum
- Chuukese name: none
- Kosraen name: none
- Pohnpeian name: Madeu Yapese name: none
- Growth form: tree growth
- location: anywhere in the tropics; on land: terrestrial
- growth environment: forest, cultivated areas, upland forest, and it grown where it is
not too hot and not too cold
- growth zone: tropical, savanna, and cultivated areas average
- height: no more than 60 meters tall
- stem: woody, bark is about one to one and one half inch thick
- leaf arrangement: alternate
- stipule: absent petioles: 3-4cm long
- Leaf blade: parallel; 8cm wide and 15cm in length
- inflorescence: none
- floral bracts: absent
- flower: white and as small as the flower of the Clinostigma ponapensis.
- calyx: not available
- corolla: white and is about 4cm in diameter
- stamens: not available
- ovary: not available
- style: not available
- fruit: green when unripe and it is round. When it ripen, the color is like the color of
a very dark blood. It is like blood on a black skinned person
- seed: there can be three or four brown seeds in one
- fruit: shape: one fourth of a breadfruit if a Pohnpeian cut it.
- anything else: it is a dicot therefore, I can conclude and say that it has more than
three petals or more than three anthers but unfortunately, I have never seen one.
- There is a season for the cinnamon tree (Madeu) to bloom.
- cultural usage: Pohnpeians carve out the thick bark and put it in boiling water and when
the liquid or the water turns pinkish red, they drink it as tea or coffee. This plant also
has important medicinal uses but unfortunately, they are not to be shared this way (world
wide).
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