Coffee Plant
Species: arabica
Genus: Coffea
Family: Rubiaceae
Order: Rubiales
Class: Magnoliopsida
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Kingdom: Plantae
Conditions for Customer Owership
We hold permits allowing us to transport these organisms. To access permit conditions, click here. Never purchase living specimens without having a disposition strategy in place. There are currently no USDA permits required for this organism. In order to protect our environment, never release a live laboratory organism into the wild.
Primary Hazard Considerations
- None
Availability
- Coffee plants are generally available year-round. Individual plants supplied are 10–15 centimeters in height and the leaves should appear a shiny dark-green. Coffee plants are shipped in plastic pots with soil. For shipping purposes a cardboard disc is used to hold the plant and soil in place. The potted plant is sealed in a plastic bag and wrapped in corrugated cardboard. Upon receipt remove the potted plant from the bag, remove the cardboard disc, and water immediately.
Captive Care
- Watering: Coffee plants require average to high humidity and need to be kept moist (not soggy). If the plant is allowed to dry enough to cause even slight wilt, the leaves are likely to turn yellow and drop.
- Fertilizers: Fertilize monthly with all-purpose water-soluble Fertilizer 20 W 6020.
- Temperature: Average house temperature is sufficient, but the plant will suffer below 16 °C.
- Light: Moderate diffused.
- Soil: African Violet or Tropical Plant Potting Soil 20 W 8306 should be used.
- Propagation: From seed or cuttings during spring or winter.
Information
- Life cycle/span: Typical dicot.
- The coffee plant is a shrubby, upright plant with shiny dark-green, wavy margined leaves. The plant can grow to four feet in height. When the plant is approximately four years old it will produce white flowers followed by red berries (flowers can be pollinated with a small camel hair brush, but they are good self-pollinators). Each fruit usually contains two seeds and takes nine months to ripen. Plants can produce seeds for 60 years.
Wild Habitat
- Coffee plants are native to the highlands of Ethiopia and are cultivated in similar climates world wide, especially Central and South America. They grow well at high altitudes in tropical and sub-tropical regions. In the wild, it is a food source for larvae of butterflies and moths.
Disposition
- We do not recommend releasing any laboratory specimen into the wild, and especially not specimens that are not native to the environment. When finished with your plant please dispose of it by incineration in a well-ventilated area.