Chiococca alba is a species of flowering plant in the coffee family (Rubiaceae) native to Florida and the extreme southern tip of Texas in the United States,[1] Bermuda, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, the Galápagos, and tropical South America. Common names include David's milkberry, West Indian milkberry, cahinca[2] and West Indian snowberry.[3] The specific epithet, alba, means "white" in Latin and refers to the color of its fruits.[4]
West Indian milkberry is an evergreen[2] woody vine or scrambling shrub that often grows on other vegetation and may reach a height of 6m (20feet).[3] The opposite, simple leaves are 5- long and may be elliptic to ovate or broadly lanceolate in shape. Yellow, bell-shaped flowers up to 1cm (00inches) in length appear throughout the year[5] on racemes or panicles of six of to eight.[6] The fruit is a white drupe 4- in diameter[5] that generally contains two dark brown seeds.[3]
Lonicera alba was described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus. It was moved to Chiococca in 1893 by A. S. Hitchcock, and is considered the type species of that genus.[7] Stewardson Brown described the Bermuda population of the plant as a new species, C. bermudiana, in 1909 due to its lighter green and larger leaves, larger berries, and wider and longer pedicels. Many authorities consider C. bermudiana a synonym of C. alba.
Chiococca alba is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental for its dark green, evergreen foliage and white drupes. It is used in espalier and grown on trellises.[6] The roots have several uses in herbal medicine, including as a laxative, diuretic, emetic, and antidiarrhoeal.[3] The plant was sold commercially in Europe and the United States for those purposes at one time.[8]