Cinchona

Cinchona, genus of tropical evergreen trees and shrubs of the madder family, yielding the medicinal bark variously known as Peruvian bark, Jesuits' bark, China bark, or cinchona bark, from which the drug quinine and related substances are obtained. All the cinchonas have laurel-like, entire, opposite leaves, and flowering heads that somewhat resemble those of the lilac. The flowers are white, rose, or purplish and very fragrant.

The species first known to Europeans was found in the Andean highlands of Ecuador and Peru. An important species exists in Bolivia and south-eastern Peru, and another in Peru and Ecuador. The practice of destroying the tree for the bark made the tree rare in its native habitat. In 1859, however, the tree was introduced into India and the East Indies, where it was so widely cultivated that the islands, particularly Java, became the centre of world production of cinchona bark until World War II. Today the bark is peeled from the tree and dried, and the final extraction of quinine alkaloids is usually done in factories.

Scientific classification: Cinchonas belong to the family Rubiaceae. The species first described is classified as Cinchona officinalis. The important species found in Bolivia and south-eastern Peru is classified as Cinchona calisaya, the species in Peru and Ecuador as Cinchona succirubra.