Background: Yerba maté is the caffeine-rich, South American native plant Ilex paraguariensis. Infusions of Yerba mate tea are extremely popular for daily use throughout South America. Reportedly more than 90% of Argentinian adults consistently consuming it as their morning brew. There, Yerba maté tea is readily available at maté cafés and maté bars which are as prevalent as coffee houses are in North America and Europe.
The leaves of this member of the holly plant family have been gathered in the wild for centuries by native people in the area of origin in and around Paraguay. Guarani tribespeople are said to have introduced yerba maté tea to European settlers, including Spanish Jesuits who, beginning in 1670, established large plantation-style tracts of maté near their missions. Over the next 100 years its use and commerce spread greatly within South America. Jesuits also introduced it into Europe. Following the 1767 expulsion of the Jesuits, those mission plantations of Ilex paraguariensis were curtailed. Large agricultural plots eventually transplanted into Brazil. Wild, native yerba mate is
only obtained from the southermost parts of Brazil and Province de Misiones in northeastern Argentina.
Description: The dioecious evergreen tree Ilex paraguariensis grows to 60 ft. in height. Leaves are alternate, coriaceous and obovate with a serrate margin and obtuse apex. The inflorescences are in corymboid fascicles, dichasiums of 3 to 11 flowers are male, female are of 1 to 3 flowers. Flowers are small, simple, numbering 4 to 5 with whitish corolla. The fruit is in a nucule; there are four or five single seed pyrenes (propagules).
Maté blooms October to November), has entomophilous pollination (diptera, hymenoptera) and fruits from March to June; dissemination is endozoic (by birds). The rudimentary embryo in many externally ripe seeds cause a long germination.
The genus Ilex belongs to the family Aquifoliaceae, which is widespread in subtropical and tropical regions of both hemispheres of the Americas. It comprises three genera in Argentina.
Ilex paraguariensis is native to Argentina.
