The genus Psychotria is comprised of more than 700 species, mostly smaller trees of the warmer part of both hemispheres.
Psychotria viridis Ruíz et Pavón, Fl. Peruv. 2 (1799) 61, t. 210, fig. b.
Shrub or small tree, up to 14 feet in height, glabrous throughout. Stipules large, acuminate, thin, brownish, caducous. Leaves short-petiolate, obovate or obovate-oblong, acute or short-acuminate, basally long-cuneate, 8-15 cm long, 2.5-5 cm wide. Inflorescence terminal, pedunculate, spicate-paniculate, shorter than leaves, up to 10 cm long, lower branches more or less verticillate. Flowers sessile in distant glomerules, very small, usually 4 mm long; corolla greenish white, not basally gibbous. Fruit small, drupaceous.
Ranging in forests throughout the Amazon basin north to Central America and Cuba.
Psychotria viridis is the most common ayahuasca admixture plant in use in Amazonian Peru where is it known as chacruna. It is also used in Amazonian Ecuador, where it is known as sami ruca or amirucapanga, and in Brazil.
This economically important species native to Arabia, is cultivated in the region known as the coffee belt, which is between latitude 25 N and 30 S. Circling the globe, the coffee belt includes parts of central and western Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. Coffea Arabica is the source of the world's finest tasting coffee. Coffea Robusta is a hearty species that matures more quickly than arabica and costs less to grow. This type of coffee is used primarily in commercial blends as a background for finer tasting coffees.
The cultural importance of this species is a consequence of its fruit containing the xanthine alkaloid caffeine.
Genus of trees and shrubs native to the Andes. Cultivated there and in Java and India for the bark which contains medicinal alkaloids.
The bark of this species is a source of the anti-malarial alkaloid quinine.
