Wow, never thought I'd have problems distingusing coffee from a Gardenia..lol..At firt glace it looks like Coffee arabica. Gardenia leaves are a tad thicker than Coffee. Do you have a gardenia? If so, maybe you can compare leaf thickness. Toni

I would say Crape Jasmine also known as Tabernaemontana.

Hi Toni,

Yes, it does look like coffee (Coffea arabica) but the seller of the plant insisted it is not coffee but a type of jasmine related to the common gardenia. She couldn't give me a specific name other than 'jasmine' so I thought maybe it is some type of gardenia.

I do have coffee plants (coffea robusta), cacao plants and ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata) and their leaves do look similar but remarkably different to this one which has much thicker leaves (thicker than my gardenias).

Supanee,

I did a google search of 'crape jasmine' and I think it is probably it. 'Crape Jasmine' (Tabernaemontana divaricata). I think I have the 'double flowered' cultivar, the 'Flore Pleno' variety or the 'Butterfly gardenia' (based on google photos) because the seller of the plant told me the blooms are double ('rose-like') and fragrant.

Thanks Toni and Supanee for the help.

tropical

Hi Tropical. I did a Google search..if your plant is a Tabernaemontana, and grows into a tall tree, it will be one beauty..
It turns out, I have a baby Tabern, but it looks sad..maybe the room is too cold or not enough humidity..it has a total of 4 leaves, about 5" tall. lol But, it's not dead..I'm going to add Superthrive to see if that helps.

After Googling, turns out Tabern's are used as sedatives and analgesics, hallucinagetics, (to seek spirits), a form of truth syrum, and stimulant, which somehow helps reduce opiate, cocaine, alcohol, and tobacco addiction..That's one heck of a plant..lol..

Tropical, here's a link of a nursery I order from that sell Taberns...if you're interested.
http://site.mawebcenters.com/accentsforhomeandgarden_1/catalog_i7476030.html?catId=292142

If it's too long to type, go to www.accentsforhomeandgarden.com Type in, Tabernaemontana in the seach window. It's common names, Butterfly Gardenia and Flower of Love.

You'll know more when it flowers. Gardenias have a distictive scent, as do Jasmine, and citrus.
Double flower! Can't wait to see it bloom. Please post when it does.
Also, if you have time, will you post your Cocoa, Coffee and Ylang-Ylang..
What is the difference between Coffee robusta and Coffee arabica or Kona? Thanks, Toni

Hi Toni,

Excellent research! Now all the more reason for me to take good care of my crape jasmine... It has such wonderful medicinal properties. I hope it flowers soon so I can post it in this thread.

As for photos of my cacao/cocoa plant, coffee (robusta) and ylang-ylang plants, they are really still very small plants right now (young seedlings with few leaves) so they're not really that interesting. But if you insist, here they are:

Coffea robusta:

Based on what I've gleaned from internet research, coffea arabica is generally recognized to be a 'higher grade' of coffee than robusta. The reason is probably because it tends to have more flavor than robusta and is more expensive to produce.

However, since robusta coffee costs less to produce, has more bitter taste and has two times the caffeine content of arabica, it is usually blended with arabica to give the consumer the impression of a 'stronger', 'purer' coffee.

Anyway, so much about coffee... Here's a photo of my ylang-ylang plant:

My cacao plants:

As you can see, my plants are really still too small to be 'interesting'. Here's my neighbor's cacao plants...
(I thought this might be more interesting.) :)

Cacao fruits near the base of her tree:
(She has five fully mature cacao trees all bearing fruits!)

Cacao flowers:

Young cacao fruits (red in color):

More mature cacao fruits (green in color):

Cacao fruit opened:

The fruit actually tastes somewhat like sugar apple (annona squamosa) but is not as sweet as sugar apple. The fruit is red when immature and turns to green as it matures and finally to yellow when it ripens and is ready for picking.

Here's the cacao beans after the flesh have been removed and after the beans have been dried and roasted:

These cacao beans (seeds) smell very chocolatey. Yum! They are then ground to produce rich, unflavored chocolate... Perfect for cooking, baking, and for all your chocolate drinking needs and all chocolate cravings. Absolutely no melamine! :) You need to be careful though because like coffee, cacao's caffeine content albeit much lower than in coffee and tea, may still raise blood pressures temporarily and the high oil content (cacao oil) is bound to make losing weight a challenge...

Hope you enjoyed.

:) tropical

Wow!! Tropical...those Cacao trees/fruits are way too cool!! They are a Beautiful!!

Thanks for the great pictures!!

Just an update... My Crape jasmine is getting ready to bloom! It seems full sun really does wonders to plants that refuse to flower: orchids, gardenias, sambacs, cestrums, and now, crape jasmine (taberns)!

Puglvr, thanks for the comments!

tropical

Although non-Native, Crape Jasmine grows wild on the Chinese island of Taiwan. It has earned a nick name "Horse Gardenia" (to show its inferiority to traditional Gardenia). The fragrance is similar to Jasmine, but it is very faint.

Hey Tropical...I missed your thread..it was around Christmas, which meant baking, shopping, and wrapping..

Dang, what beautys!!! I bet your plants grow fast, right? They've probably put out several inches since you posted..I'm green with envy..lol

What exactly is coffee robusta? I mean, obviously it's coffee, but is there any difference between robusta and arabica leaves? If there is, please describe.
Sellers on Ebay post pics of coffee plants..You know the veins/indentations on leaves? The plants/trees listed had very deep indentations. I bought two small coffee plants frp, two different people assuming I was getting the plant w/deeper indentations, only to find out they're the same plant I have..sheesh

Are you growing the two top coffees as trees, or prune so they branch out? Tropical, I love coffee trees, and the scent of grounds/beans, but I don't care for coffee. Tea is my drink.
Your Coleus are so colorful. Wow!

Do you have a dwarf or standard Ylang-Ylang? How long will it take before they flower? Did you know they make perfume from Ylang-Ylang flowers?
Your Cocoas are growing nice and compact..How tall do they get? Wish I could get my hand on seeds..I'll have to check Ebay..lol..

Tropical, your neighbors' trees are really something..The flowers growing off bark is amazing. It's so different.
How large are seeds? How is the fruit eaten? Are they considered raw and need cooking beforehand?

God, you guys are so lucky living in warm, tropical climates. If there's such a thing as reincarnation, I hope I land somewhere warm/hot. After returning to earth, not before..lol

PS. Cocoa fruit looks nothing like I pictured..Toni

Hi Toni,

I've been very busy too during the holidays... preparing gifts, attending parties, cooking, eating, etc. LOL! :)

I'm new to coffees so I really don't know what's the difference between arabica and robusta other than what I've read from wikipedia.org. Also, I don't know if there is a way to identify one species from the other based on leaf form or structure or the odor of crushed leaves alone. Maybe coffee experts here can help?

Funny, I had a similar I. D. problem with my tangerines and lemons... I planted seeds of tangerines (ponkan) and lemons side by side, but my neigbors' dogs dug up the soil a day after, so I had to replant the scattered seeds with no idea which is which. Now the seedlings are about a month old with 4-6 leaves. Basing on the leaves alone, I can't tell which ones are the lemons and which ones are the tangerines (ponkan). I've been wanting to ask the citrus forum if there is a way to tell from the leaf structure or odor of crushed leaves from seedlings that small, but I decided not to as I assumed that short of getting DNA material, there's no other accurate/reliable way to do so. I guess, I'll just have to wait till they get bigger.

Anyway, back to coffee talk. Funny, I'm no coffee drinker myself too, but I love the scent of freshly brewed coffee. I have read somewhere here (Fragrant plants forum) that coffee plants have gorgeous smelling blooms so I thought, I might grow them as 'ornamentals' and prune them as needed to make them compact. As a bonus, I could have a cup of coffee as much as I want. :)

My ylang-ylang seedling is the standard one. The standard ylang-ylang grows really fast and tall (10 ft upwards) and has very fragrant flowers.

There is also a dwarf ylang-ylang variety. I actually saw one of those dwarf ones (cananga odorata var. fruticosa) at one of our malls here being sold for 250 pesos (USD 4.50). It is only about 1 1/2 feet tall, and is being sold in bloom. It isn't as fragrant as the large standard ones, which can be found at our city hall grounds. The ylang-ylang trees at our city hall are about 15ft tall and smell intensely fragrant at night. It is for this reason I decided to plant one in my garden despite the limited space. I'll just have to wait for maybe 2 years upwards though to have flowers where for the dwarf variety, you don't have to wait at all and just buy them in bloom.
Regarding cocoa, based on my neighbor's cocoa trees, they are small trees that stay relatively compact as they don't have spreading branches. Majority of my neighbor's cocoa trees are only about 7-8 ft tall and I think they were even much shorter when they bore their first fruit.

Cocoa seeds are about an inch long though it could vary depending on how healthy and big the fruit is. The opened fruit shown in my photo above is not representative of a healthy fruit. Typical cacao fruit size is about 8 inches long (not the 'stunted' 5 inches shown in the photo). The fruit is sliced into sections when ripe and the pulp is generally eaten directly with the mouth and eaten raw without any spoon or fork. The fruit isn't really a taste to crave for but the seeds after drying and roasting will make you want to crave for chocolate.

Happy New Year to all!

tropical

Howdy Tropical..
I was feeling chilly, so checked the ousdide temp..how would you like living where the temp is 10.5F?
It's horrible..Both plants rooms are chilly. Cold to me, but I'm always cold..the chill won't harm the succulents, but tropicals may be having a difficult time adjusting.
You'd think it'd warm up since the sun is brightly shining...the strange this is, at 1pm today, it was 18.3F..How and why would it get colder now?

Oh well, that's my problem..but it sure doesn't make caring for plants any easier.

The funny thing is I've looked at coffee pics..That's how I found there was a coffee plant/tree with deep indentations..I asked an Ebay seller if he knew the type of coffee trees he had available, he said all were alike, all arabicas, there wasn't any difference..But his looked different than mine. So I ordered one. lol
When it was smaller, leaves were round shaped. That was a first..I thought, great, there IS a difference..No such luck..coffee number 2 and then 3 (bought later) are the same as number 1 tree..Same shape, no indentation..lol
The indented leaves are darker than those on my tree..I don't understand???
I'm going to Google robusta to see if there's a difference.

Did your citrus seeds germinate? One thing about lemon trees, if you rub the leaves your fingers smell lemony. More noticeable from a lemon started from seed..at least, store-bought seeds. No scent with orange or limes.
This is not the best way to ID citrus, just mentioning in passing.
What are their sizes? Oh, what variety is the lemon?

Yes Sir, coffee tree flowers are extremely fragrant..We visit a place called Botanical Gardens. Their coffee trees stand 5-6' tall. Packed with flower to boot..ummm.
One author wrote, 'don't get too excited growing a coffee plant..One plant equals a cup of coffe.' lolol..

Wow, 4.50 for a Ylang-Ylang..There are a few online nurseries that sell both dwarf and standards..they start at 20.00. That's for a 7" plant..Of course we can find taller plants, but they're 100.00+...that's out.

A friend sent Cocoa beans..they were about 1" long..outside the seed was coated with a sticky substance..she said this stuff needed to be removed, but no matter what I did, it felt it was glued to the seed..lol..It didnt matter; they never germinated. And cocoa's are sold here..even if a local nursery got them in, they'd be too darn expensive.

Tropical, do you have other citrus? Are you planning on grafting the seedlings? Seed-grown citrus take 7-14 yrs before flowering, but if they're grafted, blooming starts at 1-1 1/2 years.
I gave my seed-grown citrus away..for one, I was too impatient, and the thorns were huge..some 3" long..lol..

Have a great day..enjoy your 80 degree temps..lol..Toni

Hi Tropical!! Happy New Year to you also!!I wanted to ask you if you grow or ever heard of "Daphne Odora"? I was wondering if you do, how well does it grow in the P.I.Our FL climate is similar to yours in the spring and summer. Fall/Winter of course we are a lot different. Any help is appreciated!

There is a thread on this forum, (Jeff from AL)is growing a very nice one and I want to try it,but I think (Snasx) posted the thread. I can't seem to find it anywhere in my area, which could indicate they don't do well here. I am one of those people that like to try things that are not commom...kind of pushing the zone limit, lol...

Toni by any chance do you have one of these, I know they apparently do well in colder climates...if you do, can you tell me where you got it from? Thanks!

Here is a picture of one I found on the web...

Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi Toni,

10.5F is soooooo cold! But you know what? January has traditionally been the coldest month in the Philippines too! Winds from Siberia blow over to our archipelago starting December all the way to February resulting to *chilly* nights (68-70F) across the country. These temperatures are definitely not even considered 'chilly' by your standards given where you live, but for us used to warm climates, these months are our typical 'flu' season! :)

One thing I do like about our tropical climate is that there is no need to wait for a growing or sowing season. All year round is growing or sowing season. That is why I planted citrus seeds (tangerines and lemons) last December and they are growing very well. I even planted apple seeds last September and now my sole apple seedling survivor is already four months old! :) I just don't know if it will bear fruit though given that tropical climates don't have 'chilling hours' to speak of. LOL! :)

Anyway, my lemons and tangerine seeds are taken from the citrus fruits of our local grocery store. All I did was buy lemons and Ponkans and after consuming them, plant the seeds. The seeds grow quite easily. I assume my yellow lemons are either the 'Eureka' or 'Lisbon' grocery lemons. (All the label said was 'American lemons').

I also have calamondins (locally called 'kalamansi') that is made into juice just like a lemon. My apple seedling was also grown from the seeds of a grocery Fuji apple. I also have grafted citrus (calamondin, pomelo, green lemon, and valencia orange) but I always have the fascination of growing plants from seeds... I mean, I like challenges and I like the fulfillment of watching a small plant grow from seed and bear fruit years later on. It's a long wait but it will be worth it. Besides, I think at my age I can still wait. :)

Anyway, I hope your winter temps don't get any colder than it already is... 10.5F. On the brighter side of things though, at least those icy temps means you don't have many insect pests around like mosquitoes and flies.

:) tropical

-----
Puglvr,

Daphne Odora is as uncommon here as are the hoyas. I hope you can find a local seller there. Maybe the other members here can help.

:) tropical

Thanks tropical...maybe its not meant to be grown in weather with lots of humidity?

Don't get me started on why they don't make Hoyas more available to you guys! It should be as common as buying Hibiscus here, LOL...I just don't get it! A lot of varieties are originally from there...*sigh*...

se la vie :o(

Just another update...

The buds on my crape jasmine have finally opened after a long wait. Here's a photo I captured this morning:

The flowers are double and similar to gardenias but much smaller... And the fragrance?... I'm quite disappointed! I can't smell any! The seller of this plant told me it is fragrant but no matter what I do, I just can't smell it.

This plant is a shame to my gardenias which are currently blooming right now with strong, powerful, sweet fragrance...

tropical

NICE Tropical!! Gorgeous blooms!!

Philippine,
Your Gardenia is DYING for more acidity and iron! Please help it immediately.

Hi snasxs,

I wish I could do something about the *severe* chlorosis of my gardenias. These gardenias are planted in the ground in which the topsoil is *extensively* contaminated with construction debris (basically lime, cement and concrete fragments). No amount of iron, vinegar, fertilizer and other soil ammendments I did, sufficiently neutralized the soil alkalinity.

I've tried before and wasted money to no avail. I guess the only way to eliminate the chlorosis is to uproot my 4ft+ tall gardenias and transfer them to better soil. I don't want to do that so I guess, I'm waiting for all of them to die. So far, they refused to die and have instead, put out lots of blooms. I suspect they know I have lots other gardenias that are healthy and that I wouldn't hesitate to uproot them if they refuse to bloom... :)

Anyway, here's an older picture of my cholorotic gardenias:

tropical

Tropical,

Those are great looking flowers! I'm totally envious! How is your coffee doing? I've got a coffee arabica that was doing really well for a couple years (bought it as a small 4-incher) and now it's probably 3 feet tall. Recently though it's been browning on the edges and bronzing, and I'm at a loss as to what to do. Any suggestions?

Also, how are you putting so many pictures inline in your posts? I can't for the life of me to get a picture embedded, much less multiple pictures embedded!

Hi torrance,

Thanks for the comments. My coffee plant is still small but it has continued to grow. Compared to my ylang-ylang plant, it's a very slow grower. (Ylang-ylang grows very fast.)

Regarding your query on the bronzing and browning of the leaves of your coffee plant, I suspect either one (or possibly a combination) of the following:

1) fertilizer burn - too much fertilizer usually results to tell-tale signs of leaf tip burn or browning of leaf tips which ultimately spread to the entire leaf.

2) water/humidity stress - lack of water or too low a humidity in the growing environment may cause dehydration and hence the browned leaves. Coffee plants being understory plants tend to prefer more moisture/water and humidity than other plants.

3) heat/sun stress - perhaps the bronzing of the leaves is caused by too much sun or hot spots in the growing environment. Try moving your plant to a more shady location. As mentioned, coffee plants are understory trees and generally grow in the shade in their native environment. They can adapt to a sunny location but they will need more frequent watering and care to do well in sunny locations.

Regarding posting photos, you first need to 'upload' or 'copy' your photos (jpeg files) to an internet-connected 'server'.

Many websites offer free photo 'hosting' so you can 'upload' your photos to their 'servers' for free.

Check out photobucket.com if you want to 'upload' your photos there.

Once you have 'uploaded' your photos to your chosen photo hosting website, you will only need to learn a little 'HTML' or 'hypertext markup language' to be able to reference your 'uploaded' photos in your posts.

The HTML 'command' for adding a photo is this:
<img src="http://">;
Everything should be typed as is including the opening and closing quotation marks and the =, < and > signs. The "http://"; part should be the complete website address of the specific photo you want to attach in you posts.

Anyway, here is an example:
I used the following 'command' to insert the photo below:

<img src="http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll241/fuji_finepix_f30/garden/variegated.jpg">;

If you wish to learn more about HTML, a good reference I can recommend is Boogiejack.com

Hope this helps.

tropical