Cinchona Cinchona Cinchona is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae containing at least 23 species of trees and shrubs. They are native to the tropical Andean forests of western South America. A few species are reportedly naturalized in Central America, Jamaica, French Polynesia, Sulawesi, Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, and São Tomé and Príncipe off the coast of tropical Africa. Several species were sought after for their medicinal value and cultivated in India and Java where they also formed hybrids. The barks of several species yield quinine and other alkaloids that were the only effective treatments against
Jesuit's bark of the long list of brochures defending its use and the only independent article on this bark which has been issued by a Jesuit. The two Genoese, Girolamo Bardi, a priest, and Sebastiano Baldo, a physician, who were among the pioneer advocates of the plant, were intimate with the cardinal, and Baldo prefixed to his principal work a letter from de Lugo, dated 1659, on cinchona, which shows that the cardinal even when seventy-seven years old was still active in its behalf. Circumstances created a suitable opportunity for disseminating the bark from Rome throughout Europe by means of the Jesuits.