''Polyscias guilfoylei'', the geranium aralia or wild coffee, is a species of

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

shrub native to the

paleotropics The Paleotropical kingdom (Paleotropis) is a floristic kingdom composed of the tropical areas of Africa, Asia and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), as proposed by Ronald Good and Armen Takhtajan. Part of its flora is inherited fr ...

and

neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeog ...

. It is not closely related to the true coffee plants of the genus ''

Coffea ''Coffea'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. ''Coffea'' species are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia. The seeds of some species, called coffee beans, are used to flavor variou ...

''. It has erect branches and can grow to a height of up to . The leaves are long and 1-

pinnate Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and ...

with leaflets which are opposite. The leaf blades are variable, but usually ovate or elliptic and coarsely dentate or lacerate. The leaves are commonly

variegated '' Cryptocarya williwilliana'' showing leaf venation and variegated leaves Variegation is the appearance of differently coloured zones in the foliage, flowers, and sometimes the stems and fruit of plants, granting a speckled, striped, or patch ...

with margins of white or pale yellow, but can also be entirely dark green. The insignificant flowers form as green umbels, and may be followed by black berries. The

cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...

'Victoriae', with strongly variegated, white and green, jagged leaves, is a recipient of the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. It includes the full range of cultivated p ...

. It does not tolerate temperatures below , and must be grown under glass all year round in

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

zones.

Gallery

File:Polyscias guilfoylei 2.jpg Polyscias guilfoylei 4zz.jpg File:Polyscias guilfoylei 1.jpg

References

* Britton, N.L., and P. Wilson. 1926. Botany of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. New York Academy of Sciences, New York. * Wunderlin, R.P., B.F. Hansen, and E.L. Bridges. 1996. Atlas of Florida vascular plants. * Wunderlin, R.P., and B.F. Hansen. 2002. Atlas of Florida vascular plants. University of South Florida, Tampa. guilfoylei {{Araliaceae-stub