Bark (botany) rope, used for example in the rigging of Viking age longships. Among the commercial products made from bark are cork, cinnamon, quinine (from the bark of Cinchona) and aspirin (from the bark of willow trees). The bark of some trees notably oak ("Quercus robur") is a source of tannic acid, which is used in tanning. Bark chips generated as a by-product of lumber production are often used in bark mulch in western North America. Bark is important to the horticultural industry since in shredded form it is used for plants that do not thrive in ordinary soil, such as epiphytes.
History of aspirin products such "Cafaspirin" (aspirin with caffeine) and "Alka-Seltzer" (a soluble mix of aspirin and bicarbonate of soda) put aspirin to new uses. In 1925, the German Bayer became part of IG Farben, a conglomerate of former dye companies; IG Farben's brands of "Aspirin" and, in Latin America, the caffeinated "Cafiaspirina" (co-managed with Sterling Products) competed with less expensive aspirins such as "Geniol". After World War II, with the IG Farben conglomerate dismantled because of its central role in the Nazi regime, Sterling Products bought half of Bayer Ltd, the British Bayer subsidiary—the other half of which it already owned. However,