You can find canela as whole sticks (known as quills) or ground into a powder. Mexican cinnamon quills are thin, delicate and quite fragile; the bark curls around itself and crumbles easily.
Cinnamon in Mexico tastes different to the one that you find in other countries. Canela (Mexican or Ceylon cinnamon) is not the same variety as cassia cinnamon — what’s commonly sold and used in those other countries.