• Family : RUBIACEAE
  (Madder Or Coffee Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : COFFEE FAMILY (कॉफी फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : RUBIACEAE
• Basionym : Grumilea nigra Gaertn.
• Synonym(s) : Psychotria thwaitesii Hook.f.; Psychotria thwaitesii var. zeylanica Hook.f.
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Psychotria nigra (Gaertn.) Alston
• Habit : Shrub
• Habitat : Evergreen and semi-Evergreen forests
• Comments / notes : Occasional in forests of Western Ghats
• Key identification features : A glabrous shrub. Leaves obovate or oblanceolate, acute. Flowers sessile, mixed with rufous hairs in terminal sessile or peduncled cymes. Drupe globose, crowned with the calyx-limb; pyrenes smooth
• Flower, Fruit : Throughout the year
• Collection Nos : HFP 1661, CJS 11126
• Distribution :
  • Karnataka : Chikkamagaluru district, Dakshina Kannada district, Hassan district, Kodagu (Coorg) district, Mysuru district, Shivamogga district, Uttara Kannada district, Udupi district
  • Kerala : Kannur district, Wayanad district, Kozhikode district, Malappuram district, Palakkad district, Thrissur district, Idukki district, Kottayam district, Pathanamthitta district, Kollam district, Thiruvananthapuram district
• Native : India
• World Distribution : India, Sri Lanka
• Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
• Literature : Saldanha & Nicolson, 1976 - Flora of Hassan district, Karnataka; Balakrishna Gowda & A.N. Sringesh 2004 – Sringeri (checklist unpublished); Rao & Razi, 1981 - Mysore; Keshava Murthy & Yoganarasimhan, 1990 - Flora of Coorg district, Karnataka state; Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2014 - Flora of South Kanara; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI.
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Psychotria nigra. Downloaded on 3 July 2025.

Botanical Description

Herbarium Specimen(s)

Field Image(s)