The world trade in medicinal plants from Spanish America, 1717-1815

Between 1717 and 1778 the American medicinal plants landed legally in Spain tripled, from 45 tonnes a year to 155 - cinchona, jalap, sarsaparilla, ipecacuanha, guaiacum, the balsams. The knowledge that identified them was Andean, Tupi-Guarani and Araucanian; the trade that carried them was largely not Spanish, and by 1774 Spanish officials reckoned their own merchants handled a sixth of the traffic in a bark that grew nowhere but in their king's dominions.