Cinnamomum cassia Presl.Cassia Twig Extract.
Article Content:
- .Plant Description and Basic Data:'Spice of spices'?
- .Phytochemicals and Constituents:Cassia Twig Cinnamon.
- .Etymology of Cassia.
- .Premodern statements of function of Cassia Twig.
- .Referential Advice of Cassia Twig.
- .Functions and indications of Cassia Twig.
- .More Common Indications of Cassia Twig.
- .Flavor description of Cinnamon.
- .Cassia Twig Cinnamon Twig and Its Modern Popular Uses.
- .Cassia Cinnamon and Stomach Strong.
- .Cautions and contraindications of Cassia Twig.
- .Difference between Cinnamon Twig(Gui Zhi) and Chinese Cassia Bark(Rou Gui).
- .How search engine think about Cinamon...or...Cinnamon...or...Cassia...or...Senna...or...Spice...or...
- .Research Update:Cassia Twig.
Plant Description and Basic Data:'Spice of spices'?
Plant Origin:Dry Bark Twig of Cinnamomum cassia Presl or Cassia (Cinnamomum cassia (L.) Presl);Cinnamomum verum, C. zeylanicum, C. cassica.
Source of Cassia Twig: Gui Zhi are the fine branches and twigs of the Cinnamomum Cassia Presl plant, commonly known as the Saigon cinnamon tree.
Common Names:Cinnamon twigs,Cinnamon Twig,Cassia twigs,Cinnamon Cassia twig bark, Ramulus cinnamomi cassiae, Gui Zhi, Cinnamon Twig, Cinnamom Cassia Ramulus,Cinnamon,Dalcini,Gui,Twak,Yueh-kuei,Saigon cinnamon,Ceylon cinnamon,Dalcini,Gui,Twak,Yueh-kuei.
Part Used and Method for Pharmaceutical Preparations:The twigs are picked in the spring, dried in a shady place or in the sunshine and then cut into slices or pieces.True cinnamon, or Cinnamomum Zeylanicum, is the inner bark of a small evergreen tree native to Sri Lanka and was used in ancient Egypt for embalming. It was also added to food to prevent spoiling. During the Bubonic Plague, sponges were soaked in cinnamon and cloves and placed in sick rooms. Cinnamon was the most sought after spice during explorations of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Other names: Liu Gui
Plant family:Lauraceae (laurel family).
Nature and flavor: Acrid, sweet, and warm
Latin Name:Cinnamomum zeylanicum, Cinamomum saigonicum,Cinnamomum aromaticum,Ramulus Cinnamomi
Pharmacopeial Name: Cinnamomi cassiae cortex
Pharmaceutical Name: Ramulus Cinnamomi
Botanical Name: Cinnamomum cassia Presl
Source of Earliest Record: Shennong Bencao Jing
Channel entry: Lungs, heart, and urinary bladder
Distribution:Mainly in Chinese provinces such as Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian; also in Yunnan province.
History: The ancient Egyptians used the spice for embalming,The Dutch had a monopoly on the Cinnamon trade until 1776
Botanical Description:Long cylindrical, much-branched, 30~75 cm long, thick end 0.3~1 cm in diameter. Externally brown to reddish-brown, with longitudinal ridges, fine wrinkles, dotted leaf-scars, branch-scars and bud-scars, lenticels dotted. Texture hard and fragile, easily broken. Slices 2~4 mm thick, cut surface showing reddish-brown in bark, yellowish-white to pale yellowish-brown in wood, pith subsquare. Odour, characteristically aromatic; taste, sweet and slightly pungent, relatively strong for bark.
Synonyms of Cassia Twig:
Bot Cinnamomum aromaticum Nees
Arabic:Darseen,Kerfee Chinese:Kuei, Rou gui pi, Rougui,GuiZhi,GuiPi.
Croatian:Kineski cimet Danish:Kinesisk Kanel
Dutch:Kassie, Bastaardkaneel, Valse kaneel
English:Ramulus Cinnamomi,Chinese cassia, Bastard cinnamon, Chinese cinnamon
Estonian:Hiina kaneelipuu Finnish:Talouskaneli, Kassia
French:Casse,Canelle de Chine German:Chinesischer Zimt, Kassie Hebrew:Kasia, Kassia, Qasia, Qassia
Hungarian:Kasszia Indonesian:Kayu manis cina
Italian:Cassia, Cannella della Cina Korean:Kyae-pee
Laotian:Sa chouang, Sa chwang Norwegian:Kassia
Polish:Kasja, Cynamonowiec wonny (tree) Portuguese:Canela-da-china
Russian:Korichnoje derevo Slovak:korica cassia
Slovenian:Kasija Spanish:Casia, Canela de la China
Swedish:Kassia Thai:Ob choey, Kaeng Vietnamese:Que thanh, Que don, Que quang
Chinese cinnamon is a medium-sized evergreen tree native to China and Vietnam, now cultivated in southwestern China, Cambodia,Sri Lanka, Sumatra, and Vietnam. The cultivated trees are kept as coppices, and prevented from growing higher than 10 feet. The material of commerce used in Chinese medicine is produced in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan provinces, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The genus name Cinnamomum may be from Arabic, Hebrew, or Malay language origins and its species name, cassia, is from the Greek kassia, meaning to strip off the bark. Its medical use is recorded in Chinese formularies around 2700 B.C.E. and somewhat later in ancient Greek and Latin texts. According to the energetics theory in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), it acts to supplement body "fire," to "warm" and tone the "spleen" and "kidney," thus making it effective for precordial and abdominal pain with "cold" sensation, diarrhea due to asthenia and pathogenic "cold," and hypofunction of the kidney. Galenical preparations of Chinese cinnamon bark are used as a carminative, digestive, or stomachic component of compounds in TCM, traditional Greco-European medicines, and traditional Indian Ayurvedic and Unani medicine.
Collection:The fine branches are collected between March and July. Branch pieces of 15-100cm in length are cut and sun-dried.
Functions:Effuses sweat and resolves the exterior, warms the channels and stops pain, invigorates yang and transforms the qi
Sensoric quality: Strongly aromatic, sweet, warm, but slightly bitter and mucilaginous. Compared to Ceylon cinnamon, cassia tastes slightly bitter and adstringent, and it lacks the "liveliness" of cinnamon. On bitter spices, see also fenugreek.
Extraction: Distilled from the leaf or bark, cinnamon has a sweet, spicy-hot fragrance. The hotter, more expensive bark is composed of 40-50 percent cinnamaldehyde and 4-10 percent eugenol. It is reddish-brown. The leaf is 3 percent cinnamaldehyde and 70-90 percent eugenol.
Medicinal Action:Cinnamon helps stop menstrual cramps, indigestion, diarrhea, and genital and urinary infections. It increases sweating, and creates heat when used in a liniment.
Emotional Attribute: The smell relieves tension, steadies nerves and invigorates the senses. In very small amounts cinnamon can be an aphrodisiac.
Considerations: Both bark and leaf oils can irritate mucous membranes, but the bark oil is more hazardous. Use sparingly. Dermal irritant.
Properties: Alterative, analgesic, anodyne, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-infective, anti-oxidant, anti-parasitic, anti-septic, astringent, carminative, diaphoretic, emmenagogue, haemostatic, hypotensive, sedative, stimulates and then depresses the nervous system, stomachic.
Reference:
1.Cinnamomum cassia Presl.Cassia Twig Extract.




