Cinchona tree varieties

For several thousand years, man has used herbs and potions as medicines, but it is only since the mid-nineteenth century that serious efforts were made to isolate and purify the active principles of these remedies. Since then, a large variety of biologically active compounds have been obtained and their structures determined (e.g. morphine from opium, cocaine from coca leaves, quinine from the bark of the cinchona tree). 

QUIN IN.—Quinta or quina.—This important substance, which was discovered by Pelletier in 1820, is found naturally in the bark of several species of cinchona, which inhabit the Eastern slopes of the Cordillera in Bolivia, Peru, and New Granada. Three principal species ofbark occur in commerce—the yellow, true, or Calisaya bark, obtained from cinchona cordi-folia the red, yielded by c. ohlongifolia and tire pale, from c. condamima. It is found, also, though in smaller quantities, In a variety of barks, which are nearly all obtained from trees of the same family, the distinctive characteristics of which are but imperfectly known. 

S The bark of the trees classified in the genus cinchona is rich in a variety of alkaloids. The most widely known of these is quinine, which had been used in the New World by the indigenous population and subsequently by Europeans for the treatment of malaria. The genus was named by Linneaus after the Countess of Chinchon, wife of the viceroy in Peru, who was allegedly treated for malaria. ... 

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