''Psychotria capensis'', the bird-berry, is a

southern African Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the physical geography definition b ...

evergreen shrub or small tree. It belongs to a genus which is used medicinally in many regions, 'Psychotria' being from the Greek for 'rejuvenating', in reference to the healing properties of certain species. Kew lists some 2,000 species of ''Psychotria'' growing throughout the warmer regions of both hemispheres, but only two of them occur in southern Africa, namely ''P. capensis'' and '' P. zombamontana''.Witkoppen Wildflower Nursery

Range and habitat

It occurs along the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

n south and east coasts, from

Knysna Knysna (; ) is a town with 76,150 inhabitants (2019 mid-year estimates) in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is one of the destinations on the loosely defined Garden Route tourist route. It is situated 60 kilometres east of the c ...

through the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...

and

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...

. It is also present in eastern

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...

and

Limpopo Limpopo () is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a ...

provinces and northwards in

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

and

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

. It is found from sea level to 1,500 m in evergreen forests, along forest margins, dune scrub, along river courses and on rocky outcrops in high rainfall grassland.

Description

It grows to some 3 to 8 meters tall, and has a slender trunk, with horizontal branches and pale brown bark. The elliptic to obovate leaves are large (70-150 x 15-60 mm), leathery, glabrous, dark green above and paler below. They are opposite and often drooping. Yellow flowers are produced in terminal branched heads some 80 mm across from August to January, and are followed by bunches of pea-sized, shiny yellow fruits turning red or black when ripe. The wood is hard and fine-grained, yellowish-brown in colour.

References

External links

Image of flowers
{{Taxonbar, from=Q13034769 capensis