PENTANDRIA. °7 



tinues to make it one of the most productive branches 

 of revenue in every civilized kingdom in Europe. 



COFFEE, CoJjFea Arabic*. The coffee -tree sel- 

 dom exceeds twelve feet in height ; it is slender, the 

 upper part sending off trailing branches ; the bark is 

 brown and almost smooth. It is a native of Arabia 

 Felix and Ethiopia, and was first noticed by Ranwolfius 

 in 15/3, but first described in 15QI by Alpinus. It 

 was cultivated in Britain by Bp. Compton, in \6q6. 



The fruit of this tree is a round fleshy red berry, 

 containing two seeds, the appearance of which is well 

 known. The use of Coffee appears to have originated 

 in Ethiopia, but the practice of drinking it in Arabia 

 was introduced from Persia, by the Mufti of Aden, in 

 the fifteenth century. In 1554 its use first began at 

 Constantinople, from whence it became gradually 

 adopted in the western parts of Europe. In Paris the 

 first coffee-house established in that city was in the 

 year lfJ/2. in London in 1652 the first shop was 

 established for the sale of coffee, and eight years after, 

 it contributed to the public revenue by a duty of four- 

 pence upon every gallon made and sold. 



M. La Ptoque, in his Voyage de V Arable heureuse, 

 has given this account of the culture and management 

 of the coffee, as practised in Arabia Felix: " The 

 coffee- tree is there raised from seed, which is sown 

 in nurseries, and the young trees planted out as there 

 is occasion for them. The Arabians choose for their 

 plantations a moist and shady situation on a small 

 eminence, or at the foot of the mountains, and take* 



