Cynthia Haxo, age 13, of Santa Maria, California, for her question:

Does Cinnamon come from a tree?

Yes, it does, and the world's first cinnamon trees bestowed their fragrant flavor upon the island of Ceylon. Ages ago, they yielded their perfumed oil to make special candles for the king. Later the rich warm spice was discovered by traders and sailing, ships arrived to carry the precious cargoes around the known world. Nowadays, the spicy trees grow in many other countries but the world's best cinnamon still comes from its original homeland of Ceylon.

The handsome cinnamon tree is a tropical evergreen with large glossy leaves shaped like oblongs with slightly rounded corners. When left to grow its own way, it reaches a height of 20 to 30 feet. But the cultivated tree is topped and p1;Vtled down to a bushy dwarf. This is because its fragrant flavor is concentrated in the new growth of twigs and small branches that sprout when the wood is cut back.

There are traces of cinnamon oil in the leaves and roots of the tree, but not 3n the blossoms. In fact, some people say that the sprays of small, pale, greenish yellow flowers have a rather unpleasant odor. The marketable supply of sweet perky spice is stored in the inner bark of the young woody branches. And the generous tree yields its harvest twice every year. The cinnamon groves of Ceylon are harvested in April and again in November.

There are several methods for preparing the inner bark, with its store of spicy oil. Slivers of the bark may be pounded in sea water to mash the oil from the woody cells. The mixture is strained and distilled to produce a golden yellow liquid, with a very strong flavor fragrance of cinnamon.

A more common method treats the strips of this bark by a drying process. The inner layer that holds the precious spice is papery thin and when dried it turns a soft cinnamon brown color naturally. When it's ready, experts arrive to sniff and taste sales of the crop. The spicy stuff then is graded and sorted according to quality. The best grades of pale brown papery bark are rolled into sticks. Other grades are pounded into cinnamon powder.

We buy the wonderful stuff in small packages because a little of it goes a long way. Some cooks prefer the sticks, others use the powder. Both shed the same spicy  magic that combines so well with brown sugar to enhance apple pies, fruit cakes, special cookies and dozens of other delicacies for Christmas and for every other season.

The cinnamon tree is a member of the laurel plant family, now cultivated in the West Indies and Brazil, Egypt and other tropical climates similar to its native Ceylon.

A laurel tailed the cassia yields a spice somewhat similar to cinnamon. Sometimes this, mixed with cinnamon, will even substitute for the real thing.