狭叶咖啡 xia ye ka fei

Shrubs to small trees, 3-6 m tall; branches flattened to subterete, glabrous. Petiole 3-5 mm, glabrous; leaf blade drying thinly leathery, narrowly oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic-oblong, 4-10 × 1.5-2.5 cm, glabrous on both surfaces, base acute to cuneate, margins generally flat, apex acuminate with tip 10-20 mm; secondary veins 7-10 pairs, without domatia or with glabrous foveolate domatia; stipules broadly triangular, 2-3.5 mm, obtuse to acute and sometimes shortly mucronate. Inflorescences with cymes 1 or 2 per axil, each branched to subcapitate or fasciculate, 2-4-flowered, subsessile to pedunculate with peduncles to 2.5 mm; bracts cupuliform, 1-2 mm; pedicels to 6 mm. Flower buds resinous. Calyx glabrous; ovary ellipsoid, 1-1.5 mm; limb reduced, truncate. Corolla white or pale pink, funnelform, outside glabrous to puberulent; tube 6-8 mm; lobes 6-8(or 9), spatulate, 12-15 mm, obtuse. Drupe black or bluish black, subglobose to ovoid, 12-13 × 8-10 mm. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Dec.

Cultivated in moist, probably warm forest regions. Hainan (Chengmai) [native to W Africa; formerly occasionally cultivated in Old World tropics, apparently primarily in coffee research stations].

This species is diploid and is cultivated as "Highland Coffee of Sierra Leone." It has been occasionally hybridized with other species to produce commercial coffee plants and reported as cultivated by older authors (Purseglove, Trop. Crops: Dicot. 459. 1968; Bridson, Fl. Trop. E. Africa, Rub. (Pt. 2), 703. 1988, with documentation).