Tropical Plant Database - Plant Details

Mascarene coffee is an attractive small tree or shrub with dark glossy evergreen leaves. The flowers are white, star-like, fragrant, in axillary clusters which appear in the spring. The fruit are brownish-yellow to purple when ripe.
(Watson, L.and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992. The Families of Flowering Plants.)

Coffea mauritiana is an endemic species of the Reunion and Mauritius, two of the Mascarene Islands located in the south west Indian Ocean.

Coffea mauritiana produces beans low in caffeine content. From the beans of this plant a coffee drink is prepared with a sharp and bitter taste.

Thought to be extinct after its discovery on the island of Mauritius in 1877, poplations of this plant were rediscovered in the 1970s. A specimen of Coffea mauritiana bore fruits at Kew Gardens in London, in May 2004. Nine plants are in cultivation at the National Tropical Botanical Garden's McBryde Garden on Kauai.

We currently have 7 herbarium specimens for Coffea mauritiana in our collection. Click on any specimen below to view the herbarium sheet data.

• 011587 - collected by David H. Lorence in 1991
• 011464 - collected by David H. Lorence in 1991
• 016555 - collected by David H. Lorence in 1994
• 035141 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2000
• 047863 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2007
• S064109 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2007
• 072611 - collected by David H. Lorence in 2007