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 pharmacy in the United States number of programs in the history of medicine, history of pharmacy programs remain few in number in the United States. As soon as Columbus started his explorations of the Americas in the late 15th century, a European effort to find valuable medicinal plants among the flora of the New World to add to the medical canon got underway. Early New World medicines uncovered included guaiacum from the West Indies (for coughs, rheumatism and a wide variety of other uses), sassafras from Florida, copaiba from Brazil, Peru balsam and, most famously, cinchona bark from Peru, also called "Jesuit's bark" in honor