Tocoyena formosa

Tocoyena formosa is a flowering shrub or small tree of the coffee family Rubiaceae, widely distributed across the Brazilian Cerrado and other seasonally dry savanna formations of South America. Typically reaching two to five metres in height, it bears opposite, broadly elliptic to obovate, leathery leaves with short petioles and pronounced lateral venation, paired interpetiolar stipules persisting at the nodes. The plant is best known for its showy, strongly fragrant flowers, which are gathered in dense terminal cymes and have an exceptionally long, narrow, salverform corolla tube up to 10 to 15 cm long opening into five spreading lobes; the flowers are typically yellow to creamy white, deepening with age, and are pollinated chiefly by long-tongued hawkmoths. The fruit is a large, hard, globose to ellipsoid berry that ripens dark and contains numerous flattened seeds embedded in pulp. Together with around twenty-five other species, it represents one of the more conspicuous Rubiaceae of the Cerrado, gallery forest margins and Atlantic Forest edges.