Kenya

There are, according to Weddell, two varieties of this, only one of which is the true or medicinal. It is a magnificent tree, two to three feet in diameter, sixty to one hundred and twenty feet high, naked and erect, elevated above all the other trees of the forest, with a large leafy head. Leaves four to six inches long, and nearly half as broad, of a velvety appearance. Corolla rose coloured, with a tube four lines long, and fringed edges. It is found almost exclusively in Bolivia and South-Western Peru, on the declivities of the Andes, at an elevation of six thousand feet or more. Flowers in April and May. The bark is derived from both the trunk and branches. The trunk bark of true Calisaya comes to market in quilled (rolled) pieces, a few inches to two feet long, a quarter of an inch to two inches in diameter, and of variable thickness. It generally is covered by its rough, cracked, brown and inert epidermis. The derm (or fibre) itself is of a tawny-brown colour, with a faint orange tint, of a very fine and short fibre, furrowed distinctly by the fissures in the epidermis, and of an intense and peculiar bitter taste without much perceptible astringency. That from the branches is flat, rather browner and less brittle than the quilled variety, not covered with the epidermis. It is not so strong as the bark from the trunk. The Calisaya is now admitted to be better than any other species, though the preference was for a long time given to the pale barks. Spurious barks are frequently introduced as Calisaya; but they lack materially in the density, shortness of fibre, brittle fracture, and intense bitterness which belong to the quilled variety of the true article. The genuine Calisaya may further be known by the facts that one hundred grains of it will yield not less than two grains of pure quinia, and that its quinia is readily soluble in dilute sulphuric acid.