fever tree

plural fever trees

1. Any of various shrubs or trees used to treat fever, including:
   1. An acacia tree of species Vachellia xanthophloea, native to eastern and southern Africa, with fragrant yellow flowers.

      Goodbye. I am going to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner.

      1912, Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant's Child

      2 more examples

      To write of fever in the home of the far-famed “fever tree,” without adding a word upon its merits, would look like denying it honour in its own country; and to avoid that appearance of ingratitude, a leaf will now be gleaned from indigenous blue-gum literature.

      1874, William Thomson, On Typhoid Fever, page 195

      Virtually all the trees in the home range of the baboons are acacias of just two species: the fever tree, Acacia xanthophloea (18.4% of feeding bouts), and, on somewhat higher, drier ground, the umbrella tree, A. tortilis (5.0%).

      1998, Stuart A. Altmann, “Dietary Diversity”, in Foraging for Survival: Yearling Baboons in Africa, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 76

   2. Georgia bark; any member of the species Pinckneya bracteata (syn. P. pubens), principally of Georgia and northern Florida in the US.