Coffea liberica

Coffea liberica
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Gentianales
Family:	Rubiaceae
Subfamily:	Ixoroideae
Tribe:	Coffeeae
Genus:	Coffea
Species:	C. liberica
Binomial name
Coffea liberica Hiern
Synonyms
Coffea dewevrei De Wild. & T.Durand Coffea dybowskii Pierre ex De Wild. Coffea excelsa A.Chev.

Coffea liberica (or Liberian coffee) is a species of flowering plant in the Rubiaceae family. It is a coffee that is native to western and central Africa from Liberia to Uganda and Angola. It is also naturalized in the Seychelles, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, French Polynesia, Central America, the West Indies, Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil.

Cultivation and use

The Coffea liberica tree grows up to 20 metres in height, producing larger fruits than those found on Coffea arabica trees. This coffee was brought to Indonesia to replace the arabica trees killed by the coffee rust disease at the end of the 19th century. It is still found in parts of Central and East Java today.

Liberica is a major crop in the Philippines. The town of Lipa (now Lipa City) became the biggest producer of arabica in the 1880s, but collapsed when the coffee rust disease arrived in the 1890s, killing almost all coffee arabica plants, which threatened the variety with extinction. Today, the provinces of Batangas and Cavite in the Philippines are producers of a variety of liberica known as 'Baraco'.

Taxonomy

Coffea dewevrei, Coffea dybowskii and Coffea excelsa were formerly considered as separate species but were reclassified in 2006 as synonyms for Coffea liberica var. dewevrei.

See also

• Coffee portal

External links

• World Checklist of Rubiaceae
• Coffea liberica, United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization website