Psychotria capensis subsp. capensis

The black bird-berry, in Afrikaans the swartvoëlbessie (black bird-berry) or geelblomvoëlbessie (yellow flower bird berry), as Psychotria capensis subsp. capensis is commonly known, is a small, evergreen tree, typically growing to heights from 3 m to 8 m (SA Tree No. 723). The tree often forms part of the understorey in evergreen montane forests.

The subspecies is found in nature along the South African south and east coasts from the east of the Western Cape, through the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal and inland in the Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo, as well as in some neighbouring countries.

The habitat is varied, including dune bush, evergreen forests and their margins, riverbank forest and rocky outcrops in high rainfall grassland. The trees occur from sea level to elevations around 1500 m. SANBI has not evaluated the status of the population of this taxon at the time of writing (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002; Pooley, 1993; iNaturalist; http://pza.sanbi.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).