Description:

• Shrubs or small trees
• Leaves petiolate, glabrous; domatia usually present; stipules very shortly connate above axils, ovate or lanceolate, apiculate
• Flowers axillary or terminal, solitary or clustered, bracteate; bracts usually connate into a single or double cup
• Calyx persistent with tube shortly campanulate, turbinate or urceolate; shortly toothed or cleft
• Corolla (4)5-7(8)-lobed, white; lobes contorted, spreading; tube cylindric or somewhat funnel-shaped, glabrous in throat
• Stamens usually 5-7, arising in mouth of corolla tube, partly included or exserted; filaments short or obsolete; anthers slightly dorsifixed
• Disc fleshy
• Ovary 2-locular, with a solitary ovule in each locule on subpeltate placenta attached to middle of septum; style filiform, usually shortly exserted; stigma with 2, usually divergent arms
• Fruit a ± ellipsoidal drupe, usually fleshy, with 1 or 2 1-seeded pyrenes
• Seeds oblong-ellipsoid, deeply grooved on inner face ('coffee beans'), shiny
• x = 11 (10) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Coffea L.
  • Linnaeus: 172 (1753)
  • Hiern: 179 (1877)
  • Bridson & Verdcourt: 703 (1988)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 40, in Old World tropics, especially Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 2: Coffea racemosa Lour., KwaZulu-Natal and C. zanguebariae Lour., Mpumalanga