fever tree

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

fever tree (plural fever trees)

1. An acacia tree, Vachellia xanthophloea, native to eastern and southern Africa, with fragrant yellow flowers.
   • 1874, William Thomson, On Typhoid Fever, page 195:

     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.

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

     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%).

   • 1912, Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant's Child:

     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.

2. The American flowering plant Pinckneya pubens.

Translations

Vachellia xanthophloea

• Kikuyu: mũrera class 3