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Cinchona calisaya
Also called Chinabark, Ledgerbark, Yellow Cinchona, Yellowbark
Cinchona calisaya is a shrub or tree from the eastern Andes of Peru and Bolivia, grown mainly for its high quinine bark. It is a forest tree in the wild and is rarely grown as a home garden plant, so care notes are general and it needs warm, humid, partly shaded conditions.
Cinchona calisaya is a species of shrub or tree in the family Rubiaceae. It is native to the forests of the eastern slopes of the Andes, where they grow from 200–3,300 metres (660–10,830 ft) in elevation in Peru and Bolivia. The species is known for a high quinine content, a key antimalarial alkaloid. From the 1860s, it was grown in plantations (under the synonym C. ledgeriana Wedd.) in the Dutch East Indies to supply the global quinine trade.
Cinchona bark and its quinine alkaloids can cause cardiac sodium and potassium channel blockade, CNS and renal toxicity. Cinchonism trio: GI upset, headaches, and tinnitus. Ventricular arrhythmias, hypoglycemia, renal failure, respiratory failure, jaundice and death.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cinchona calisaya by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
