Cinchona
Photo: flickr user portmanteaus
About
The plant known as the cinchona is a tall evergreen tree that often reaches between fifty to a hundred feet in height when fully mature. The leaves of the cinchona are flat and broad, marked off by large veins running in the lamina which has a shiny green surface. Cinchona flowers are white, pink or red in color and are often elongated; they are also covered all over thickly with silky hairs, giving them a very distinct appearance.
Malaria was a major enemy for the American troops who fought their way from one island to island during the Second World War. These troops “island hopped” across many places in the South Pacific, where they faced a formidable non-human enemy in the form of the deadly protozoan parasite that causes malaria. In most of the tropical jungles of these islands, the deadly microscopic foes lay for human victims and caused a lot of needless casualties. Malaria is caused by the protozoans belonging to the genus Plasmodium, which when injected into the human blood by way of the needle fine proboscis of a mosquito, will subsequently bring on the debilitating disease of malaria on the unlucky victim.