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Wild Coffee FAQ: Can You Make Coffee with Wild Coffee? (No)

26 Apr

Wild Coffee

Psychotria nervosa

Rubiaceae

Answer:  I’d like to get my mitts on the numbskull who made up the English names for the plants of the world.    The only connection between the Wild Coffees and Starbucks is joint membership in the Coffee Family, the Rubiaceae, along with 12,999 other close relatives.  There is a little visual similarity between a Wild Coffee and Coffea arabica, but chalk that up to broad family resemblance.  The genus of Wild Coffees, Psychotria, with some 2000 species, is one of the largest genera of woody plants.

Wild Coffee (by JB)

Would you make a cup of  “coffee” from Psychotria?  No, unless maybe you are a Shaman, and few Shamans read WordPress blogs.  The traditional uses of Psychotria include ayahuasca.  Ayahuasca  is a variable mind-altering Amazonian ceremonial concoction where the main psychoactive ingredient comes from the Banisteriopsis Vine in the Malpighiaceae (represented in south Florida by weedy Hiptage, garden flowers, and native Locust-Berry (Byrsonima lucida—another day another blog).

Psychotria adds kick to the ayahuasca with a drug known as dimethyltriptamine (DMT).  So, then again, maybe Starbucks should take a second look.  Psych-otria and psych-adelic come from the same Greek word psyche for mind and soul.  Psychotria extracts serve also in arrow poisons as well as fish and vermin-killers.  So please don’t make “wild” coffee unless you are a licensed shaman.

Psychotria punctata (by GR)

Two thousand species worldwide, four in Florida, three native.  The non-native species, Psychotria punctata from southern Africa is cultivated a bit in southernmost Florida and apparently escaped a little. Its claim to fame is foliage punctuated with translucent bacterial nodules (see the photo).   But this is a native plants blog, so back on-task.  Our three natives are:

1.   Bahama-Coffee is Psychotria ligustrifolia (P. bahamensis) on limestone in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, in the Bahamas, and on other Caribbean islands.  It differs from P. sulzneri by having glossy (vs. dull) leaves, and differs from P. nervosa by having smaller more compact form and smaller leaves with less-impressed veins.  The compactness, overall good looks, and shade-tolerance give Bahama Coffee a role in native plant landscaping.  A tough and beautiful planting has graced the Palm Beach State College campus for many years in serious shade and with little to no irrigation.

2.  Dull Leaf Coffee, aka Sulzner’s Dull Coffee (or other variations on similar names), P. sulzneri , is a pretty  shrub with flat-toned leaves having  a velvety sheen. (More on this species at (http://wp.me/p1H7HW-b3).    It is a hammock dweller from southern peninsular Florida to Costa Rica.

3. The most-cultivated Wild Coffee is Psychotria nervosa.  The “nervosa” does not refer to a state of mind, but rather more mundanely to the leaf veins (nerves) which are deeply grooved.  This species (and Bahama Coffee) have domatia beneath the leaves.  Psychotria nervosa differs from the other two by having tiny calyx teeth (sepals).  It ranges naturally from Jacksonville to South America.

Wild Coffees are prime examples of an odd biological phenomenon, heterostyly (HET-er-oh-style-ee), that is, having styles of different lengths.  Flower vocabulary refresher:  the style is the elongated part of the female unit at the flower center.  It is tipped by the pollen-receptive stigma, and its base is the ovary where seeds develop.  This is important, so remember that the stigma is the pollen-receptive tippy top of the style.   Stamens make pollen at their own tips.

Many Rubiaceae are heterostylous (het-er-oh-STYLE-us), including such Florida native “coffees” as Mitchella, Morinda, Guettarda, and others.  (To lllustrate, I’m going to use Guettarda (Velvetseed) for the convenient reason I have good pictures.   Psychotria is the same for present purposes. )

Heterostyly (using Velvetseed as a similar example) Image credit in text.

Heterostyly is an adaptation to force flowers to cross-pollinate.  In heterostylous species there are two breeding strains, and each is forced to cross exclusively with the other strain.  Here is how it works.

In one strain, the flowers have long styles (with those pollen-receiving stigmas at the tips) and short pollen-making stamens.  These long-styled flowers are called “pin” flowers.  Think of the long style as a pin.

The other strain has the reverse:  short styles and long stamens .  (“Thrum” flowers.  Thrum sounds like Tom Thumb and he was short.)

Thrum. five stamens protruding, andshort style hidden.

Psychotria nervosa pin flower. Style is protruding, and stamens are hidden in the flower.

Think of the pollinating bee as a dipstick probed into a flower with the bee’s nose going in deep and the bee’s knees remaining out near the entrance to the flower.  (This is oversimplified using nose and knees to make a schematic point. The actual touchpoints vary among species.)

In a pin flower the bee’s nose touches the short stamens while the bee’s knees touch the pollen-receptive stigma on the tip of that long style.  Flip-flopped, in a thrum flower, the bee’s nose touches the short stigma and the bee’s knees touch the long stamens.

So then, when the bee visits a pin flower, the short stamens powder its nose with pollen.  If it flies to another pin flower the pollen-dusty nose is not aligned for pollen-drop-off.  For this bee to drop off its pollen, it must switch to a thrum flower where the nose can pollen-dust the short stigma.  In Psychotria you can distinguish pin and thrum flowers with a hand lens.  (You can tell the styles from the stamens because each flower has one style but five stamens.)

[Drawings by Karen Stoutsenberger, from Rogers, G. K. The Genera of Rubiaceae in the S.E. U.S. Harvard Papers in Bot. 10: 42. 2005.]

Wild coffee (by JB)

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2012 in Wild Coffee

 

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Dull Leaf Coffee isn’t THAT Dull

10 Dec

Dull Leaf Coffee


Psychotria sulzneri


Rubiaceae


Today John and George continued exploration of Mariposa Cane Slough Preserve in Pt. St. Lucie behind Sam’s Club.  Basing our species choice on beauty, today’s looker was the Dull Leaf Coffee, Psychotria sulzneri in full berry.   This species is one of the four Psychotria species in Florida, three of them native, two indigenous to our area.  The other local native is the Wild Coffee, Psychotria nervosa (the term “nervosa” refers to the leaf veins, not to a mental condition).


Psychotria is one of the largest Dicot genera, with over 1500 species around the world in warm climates.   Some, including Psychotria punctata introduced in southernmost Florida, have symbiotic bacterial translucent dots in the leaves.   Some produce psychoactive alkaloids, although the name “Psychotria,” is apparently not a direct reference to drugs, but rather to an ancient belief that species of this genus propped up the psyche, or soul.   Wild Coffees are related distantly to the coffee we drink, and so far as we know, drinking preparations from Psychotria is dangerous (see comments on drugs above).   Psychotria is in the Coffee Family, the Rubiaceae, an assemblage of many thousand species, including wildflowers (such as Innocence), garden selections (such as Ixora), medicines (such as Quinine), and weeds (such as Mexican “Clover”).


To transition into today’s chosen species, Charles F. and Pearl Sulzner were early Miami real estate investors who supported good causes, including botany, especially for the New York Botanical Garden.  John Kunkel  Small, Florida’s preeminent botanist and namer of P. sulzneri,  represented the New York Botanical Garden and was connected to Miami philanthropy.  He knew how to suck up. Charles Sulzner died tragically at age 85 after being clobbered  by a streetcar in St. Petersburg.





The fruits (photo by JB)

The stunning berries (actually, drupes) on Psychotira sulzneri  pass through a bright yellow phase on the way to scarlet, often resulting in flame-colored fruit displays, no doubt irresistible to birds.   We will come back to the amazing  flowers when the species is in bloom.


The most remarkable feature of Dull Leaf Coffee is not so colorful.    Our two local Psychotria species have starkly different leaf coloration.   Psychotria nervosa features high-gloss bright green.  Psychotria sulzneri , by contrast, has a deep green velvet-matte finish, with a tiny kiss of blue.  But why?  That leaf color is not common in the plant world, although it occurs in other species.  Folks with northern wildflower experience know “Wild-Ginger” (Asarum canadense) with similar coloration.    The leaves are also reminiscent of some Hydrangea foliage, or to a couple of grass buffs like us, a wee hint of Blue Maidencane (Amphicarpum muhlenbergianum).    What do all these have in common?  Shade.


To slide into speculation:     Psychotria nervosa is probably glossy as an adaptation to reflect excess sunbeams, just like a pilot’s mirrored sunglasses.    That would not imply an inability to tolerate shade—it can.   Perhaps delicate shade-tolerant photosynthetic mechanisms need that extra glossy sunscreen, just as the pilot’s delicate retinas need protection.





Rubiaceae stipule (photo by JB)

Psychotria sulzneri  is playing a different game.   Its deep sub-green anti-reflective solar panels  look like they are adapted to drink in every photon, allowing the species to flourish deep in the understory, which it does.  Perhaps P. sulzneri has developed its own sun protection.   When you go to the beach with sunblock it doesn’t show.  So much to research, so few opportunities.  Wouldn’t it be fun to be 22 years old, starting graduate school and looking for research projects with a lab and a grant!?


As members of the Coffee Family, psychotrias have a small flap (stipule) between the opposite leaf bases.  The inner surface of the stipule has on it tiny sticky fingers called colleters.  These secrete nectar;  the nectar presumably attracts ants; and the ants presumably defend their botanical sugar-daddy.  Apparently the Mariposa Coffees have escalated their deterrent threat by attracting Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnakes to stand guard.




By the Dull Leaf Coffeee (photo by John “snakes” Bradford)

 
2 Comments

Posted by on December 10, 2011 in Dull Leaf Coffee

 

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