grown in Australia. The high-quinine plant was named Cinchona ledgeriana. In 1871, Mamani was arrested whilst on a seed hunting trip, and beaten so severely that he died soon afterwards. Ledger ceased to collect seeds and provided money to Mamani's family. In 1883 Ledger went to Sydney again and in 1884 took a farm 20 miles (30 km) from Goulburn, New South Wales. Retirement and death Losing his savings in the bank failures of the early 1890s, efforts were made by Sir Clements Markham and others to obtain some provision for Ledger from the Indian and Dutch governments. Initially this was refused, but in 1897 on Ledger's 79th birthday, he received news that the Dutch government had granted him an annuity of £100 a year. He died eight years later in 1905 at 'Mimosa Cottage', Elswick St, Leichhardt, Sydney. He is buried in Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney. Impact Ledger did a great service to the world, as millions of cinchona trees grown in India and Java sprang originally from the seeds he collected. By 1900 two-thirds of the world's supply of quinine came from Java, and over 40 years later the Ledger types of cinchona were still the best quinine yielders. References Part of Ledger's own account of his life can be found at p. 118, Chemist and Druggist, 27 July 1895, which is available as a searchable archive. Some of Ledger's papers are available at the State Library of NSW: ML MSS.630 Further reading R. S. Desowitz 1991. The Malaria Capers. Norton and Co., New York, NY. M. Honigsbaum, The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria (London, 2001) G. Ledger, The Alpaca: Its Introduction into Australia, and the Probabilities of its Acclimatisation There (Melbourne, 1861) N. Taylor, Cinchona in Java: The Story of Quinine (New York, 1945) G. Gramiccia, The Life of Charles Ledger (181-1905): Alpacas and Quinine Macmillan, 1988. 1818 births 1905 deaths Quinine Clerks