Coffea arabica Benth.

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Rubiaceae

• Scientific Name

  Coffea arabica Benth.

• Description

  Species Description - Coffee, one of the most important crops of Porto Rico, is spontaneous from seed under favorable circumstances. The extensive plantations, called cafetals, are mostly in moist parts of the island, at elevations between 250 and 650 meters, shaded by several different kinds of trees planted for this purpose; these plantations serve to retard the washing of slopes by rain, an important function, not as effective, however, as forests, which, from a distance, they resemble. The Porto Rico Department of Agriculture, and the Agricultural Experiment Station at Mayaguez, have, naturally, given much attention to this crop, to the many different kinds of coffee, their cultivation, and disease. The plant is a native of tropical Africa, a small tree or shrub, with broad, opposite leaves, and fragrant, white, clustered flowers, widely cultivated in tropical regions. Coffea (name from the Arabic) is a Linnaean genus, with about 20 species, all natives of the Old World. They are shrubs, or trees, with broad, untoothed leaves, the flowers in axillary clusters. The tube of the calyx, attached to the ovary, is oblong, or top-shaped; the funnelform, or salverform corolla has 4 or 5, oblong, contorted lobes; there are 4 or 5, short stamens, with slender anthers, borne at the throat of the corolla; the 2-celled ovary has 1 ovule in each cell, and the style is 2-forked. The fruit is a berry, containing 2, hard, convex nutlets. Coffea arbica (from Arabia) may become about 7 meters high, but is usually lower. The trunk is slender, the bark gray. The dark green, elliptic to oblong, pointed leaves are from 7 to 15 centimeters long, with stalks about 1 centimeter long, or shorter. The flowers, few or several together in the axils, are short-stalked; the calyx is about 3 millimeters long, obscurely toothed; the tube of the white corolla is from 6 to 10 millimeters long, the lobes somewhat longer. The globose to oblong berries are smooth, from 10 to 16 millimeters long, reel, turning black when fully ripe.

• Discussion

  Café Coffee Madder Family Coffee arabica Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 172. 1753.