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Medicine from trees

The bark that cured malaria, the willow that became aspirin, the conifers that fight cancer — and the fruit with the most vitamin C on Earth.

Trees
  1. 01
    Cinchona tree foliage with pink flower clusters
    Trees№ 3784 min

    Quinine Tree: The Bark That Conquered Malaria and Built Empires

    The Andean tree whose bitter bark gave the world its first cure for malaria — a drug so strategic that stealing its seeds broke a national monopoly and reshaped colonial history, and that still flavours your tonic water.

  2. 02
    Willow cuttings sprouting new growth along a riverbank
    Trees№ 5254 min

    Willow: The Pioneer That Grows from a Stick

    Willows root from bare cuttings, stabilise riverbanks, coppice endlessly, and serve as living infrastructure across temperate landscapes.

  3. 03
    The tall smooth pale trunk of an arjuna tree with a spreading crown
    Trees№ 0193 min

    Arjuna: The Heart Tree of the Riverbanks

    A great buttressed tree of Indian riverbanks whose smooth bark has been the Ayurvedic medicine for the heart for three thousand years — a use that modern cardiology has taken seriously.

  4. 04
    Pale green translucent amla fruit clustered on a branch with fine feathery leaves
    Trees№ 0113 min

    Amla: The Sacred Sour Fruit of a Thousand Remedies

    The Indian gooseberry — a translucent, mouth-puckeringly sour fruit extraordinarily rich in vitamin C, revered as the holiest of trees in Ayurveda, and the keystone of India's most famous herbal tonics.

  5. 05
    Ripe brown chebulic myrobalan fruits on the tree
    Trees№ 3073 min

    Myrobalan: The 'King of Medicines' and the Ink of Empires

    The chebulic myrobalan — a Terminalia fruit revered in Ayurveda as the greatest of all herbs, one of the three in triphala, and a tannin so rich it dyed cloth, tanned leather, and made ink for a thousand years.

  6. 06
    A spreading neem tree with pinnate leaves and clusters of small fruit
    Trees№ 3125 min

    Neem: The Village Pharmacy Tree

    A dryland tree whose seed oil is the most widely used botanical insecticide there is — plus the biopiracy case that reshaped patent law.

  7. 07
    Plum-yew branch with dark needles and fleshy olive-like fruit
    Trees№ 3603 min

    Plum-Yews and Torreyas: The Yew-Like Trees That Fight Cancer

    Shade-loving, yew-like conifers bearing fleshy plum-like seeds — one genus the source of a genuine leukaemia drug, the other holding a Florida tree so blighted it may be the most endangered conifer in North America.

  8. 08
    Dried star anise pods showing the eight-pointed star shape
    Trees№ 4614 min

    Star Anise: The Spice That Made the Flu Drug

    A small Chinese tree whose star-shaped seed pods are a fundamental spice of Asian cooking — and, for years, the world's main source of the raw material for the antiviral drug Tamiflu, with a toxic look-alike to beware.

  9. 09
    Desert date tree with green thorny branches and clusters of yellow date-like fruit
    Trees№ 1263 min

    Desert Date: The Thorny Tree That Fights a Disease in the Water

    A spiny, drought-proof tree of the Sahel whose bitter-sweet 'date' feeds the dry country, whose seeds press a fine oil — and whose fruit, dropped in water, kills the snails that carry one of Africa's great parasitic diseases.

  10. 10
    Ashoka tree with dense clusters of orange-red flowers among glossy drooping leaves
    Trees№ 0213 min

    Ashoka Tree: The Sorrowless Tree of Gods and Women

    A small, sacred, orange-flowered tree woven through the myths of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism — associated with love, fertility, and 'the removal of sorrow' — and long a medicine for women, now over-harvested and threatened.

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