Category: Plant Life
Date Shot: Wed, Jan 20, 2010
Date Submitted: Sat, Jan 23, 2010
Viewed: 101 times
Camera: Canon 50D DSLR
Lens: Canon EF 100-400mm L IS USM
Filter: n/a
Comment: The berries on Wild Coffee are normally red, but the recent frost had rendered these purple. It is a native shrub found in shell ridge hammocks in filtered sunlight beneath cabbage palms. The flowers and fruit are used by many butterfly and bird species, including cardinals, mockingbirds, catbirds and spicebush swallowtail butterflies. Because wild coffee is cold sensitive, it ranges from St. Johns County in northeast Florida south to the Keys. It is indigenous in the West Indies and Central America.