Cinchona ledgeriana" had a yield of 8 to 13 percent quinine in bark grown in Dutch Indonesia which effectively out-competed the British Indian production. It was only later that the English saw the value and sought to obtain the seeds of "C. ledgeriana" from the Dutch. During World War II, the Japanese conquered Java and the United States lost access to the cinchona plantations that supplied war-critical quinine medication. Botanical expeditions – called Cinchona Missions – were launched in 1942-1944 to explore promising areas of South America in an effort to locate cinchona species that contained quinine and could be harvested
Beech bark disease Beech bark disease Beech bark disease is a disease that causes mortality and defects in beech trees in the eastern United States and Europe. In North America, the disease occurs after extensive bark invasion by the beech scale insect, "Cryptococcus fagisuga". Through a presently unknown mechanism, excessive feeding by this insect causes two different fungi ("Neonectria faginata" (previously "Nectria coccinea var. faginata") and "Neonectria ditissima" (previously "Nectria galligena")) to produce annual cankers on the bark of the tree. The continuous formation of lesions around the tree eventually girdles it, resulting in canopy death. In Europe, "N. coccinea" is the primary