346 RUBIACEAE. 
CoFFEA. Coffee. 
(Family Rubiaceae). 
Tender shrubs or small irees, 
more or less deciduous, Twigs 
rather slender, somewhat flattened 
or dilated at the nodes: pith 
roundish, continuous, pale. Buds 
small, naked, nearly covered by 
the stipular sheath. Leaf-scars 
opposite or sometimes in whorls 
of 3, half-round or half-elliptical, 
somewhat raised, especially on 
branches with short internodes: 
bundle-trace 1, crescent-shaped: 
stipules united into a sheath about 
the stem, long persisting. Leaves 
simple, entire. 
Coffee and tobacco are perhaps 
the most widely used unessential 
luxuries derived from the vege- 
table kingdom. Though it con- 
tains the active alkaloid caffein, 
now obtained largely from _ tea- 
leaves, it is not commonly conceded by those whose break- 
fast or dinner would be considered impossible without it that 
they are seeking the stimulus afforded by coffee, any more 
than those who follow the meal by tobacco admit that they 
are in quest of its sedative effect. 
Glabrous: stipular-sheath 2-pointed. C. arabica. 
