The Geography of Phytochemical Races

2.6 South America 71
Fig. 2.43 Compounds 166–169, quinine relatives from Cinchona. Compound 170, a generalized
sugar ester from Lycopersicon pennellii
One of the remarkable things about Cinchona and its contained alkaloids is the
incredible concentrations to which some of the compounds accumulate in the bark.
In some specimens, the concentration is so high that it is possible to pick individual
crystals of alkaloid out of the powdered bark preparations! With concentrations
of this magnitude, it is no surprise that a good deal of effort was expended in
attempting to locate the highest yielding trees. The description of the quest for highyielding
trees and the results of his own study of alkaloid variation in Cinchona
can be found in Camp’s (1949) masterful treatment of the subject. His remarkable
account describes analysis of trees collected along a transect running essentially
along the frontal escarpment of the western Cordillera of the Andes from about
3°N latitude in Colombia through Ecuador to about 5°S latitude in northern Peru
(Fig. 2.44). Three zones were defi ned by the study: (1) a low-elevation zone characterized
by C. “succirubra”, which ranged from 3°S latitude southward; (2) the midelevation
zone characterized by C. pubescens s. str., which lies roughly between 0°
and 2°30′S; and (3) the high-elevation zone characterized by C. pitayensis from 3°N
to about 0°. Concentrations of “total crystallizable alkaloids” ranged from very low
levels (