Coffea arabica (coffee plant) is sometimes grown as a houseplant in colder climates. It is native to northeast tropical Africa (Southern Ethiopia, South Sudan (Boma Plateau) and possibly East Tropical Africa (Kenya, Mt Marsabit). It is the major source of the familiar coffee bean (one of the two seeds held within a fleshy fruit). This shrub, which is single-stemmed when young but gradually becomes bushy, can grow 15 feet high outdoors but seldom grows more than 4 feet indoors.

Coffee plant cannot tolerate temperatures below 55 degrees and it needs a humid environment or leaf tips will turn brown or black.

It takes about three or four years for the plant to produce 1/4-inch-wide, star-shaped, fragrant, white flowers, usually in mid summer or early fall. Blooms are followed by 1/2-inch long fruits, which change color from green to red and then to nearly black. The dwarf form, C.a. 'Nana' may begin to bear flowers and fruit when only 1 1/2-2 feet tall.

Courtesy of the NYBG Plant Information Service