Quinine the Quechua, who are indigenous to Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, to halt shivering due to low temperatures. The Quechuas would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with sweetened water to offset the bark's bitter taste, thus producing tonic water. The Jesuits were the first to bring cinchona to Europe. The Spanish were aware of the medicinal properties of cinchona bark by the 1570s or earlier: Nicolás Monardes (1571) and Juan Fragoso (1572) both described a tree that was subsequently identified as the cinchona tree and whose bark was used to produce a drink to treat diarrhea. Quinine has been
Cinchona prefer the pronunciation for the common name of the plant. The national tree of Peru is in the genus "Cinchona". "Cinchona" plants belong to the family Rubiaceae and are large shrubs or small trees with evergreen foliage, growing in height. The leaves are opposite, rounded to lanceolate and 10–40 cm long. The flowers are white, pink or red, produced in terminal panicles. The fruit is a small capsule containing numerous seeds. A key character of the genus is that the flowers have marginally hairy corolla lobes. The tribe Cinchoneae includes other genera "Cinchonopsis", "Jossia", "Ladenbergia", "Remijia", "Stilpnophyllum", and "Ciliosemina". In