|Sections and Species|
|Cyclopia is endemic to South Africa.|
Cyclopia, better known by the common name Honeybush, or Heuningbos in Afrikaans, is a genus of some 20 species of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae, of the subfamily Faboideae. The description was published by Étienne Pierre Ventenat in 1808. The name Ibbetsonia, published two years later, is regarded as a synonym of this genus; John Sims had commemorated the physiologist Agnes Ibbetson with this name.
Cultivation and Use
Honeybush is so named because the flowers smell of honey. The taste of honeybush tea is similar to that of rooibos but a little sweeter. In some rural districts it used to be common practice to keep a kettle of honeybush tea infusing on the stove ready for drinking while scenting the whole house — unlike tea prepared from Camellia sinensis, the product does not turn bitter with long-term simmering.
- Cyclopia intermedia, known as 'bergtee' (mountain tea), found between Port Elizabeth and the edge of the Langkloof
- Cyclopia genistoides, known as 'kustee' (coastal tea), found mostly in the Western Cape near Yzerfontein and Darling and also thriving in the South Cape if cultivated
- Cyclopia maculata, grown in the Outeniqua area near George
- Cyclopia sessiliflora, known as 'Heidelberg-tee', named after the town Heidelberg in South Africa, where it grows in the local mountain range
- Cyclopia subternata, known as 'vleitee' (marshland tea) or 'valleitee' (valley tea)
Some species can be cultivated whereas others have resisted all attempts at cultivation and must be harvested in the wild. It is not always easy to discover what the seeds need to enable them to germinate; some kinds bear elaiosomes and might be dependent on the services of particular ants or birds. Cyclopia intermedia (mountain tea) is one of the teas that is harvested in the Kouga mountains where it grows naturally. Mountain tea regenerates within three years after harvesting or devastation by fire; consequently less than one third of the mountain yield is available for harvesting each year by rotation.
Mountain tea and valley tea flower in September/October whereas coastal tea flowers in May/June.
There are two methods of processing honeybush for use in tea. In the traditional method, the leaves of the bush are harvested, cut and bruised (often with mechanical rollers), and then left in the sun to oxidise. The modern, industralised process oxidises the leaves in rotating, heated tanks at temperatures of 70–90 °C, for two to three days. The leaves are then air-dried.
Afterwards, the leaves are sifted and graded according to the application:
- Super Fine (mostly used for string-and-tag tea bags)
- Regular Fine (mostly used for swimming tea bags or loose tea application)
- Coarse (mostly used for loose tea application)
- cinnamic acids
- mangiferin and isomangiferin (Cyclopia subternata)
- Cyclopia burtonii Hofmeyr & E. Phillips
- Cyclopia buxifolia (Burm. f.) Kies
- Cyclopia laxiflora Benth.
- Cyclopia alpina A.L. Schutte
- Cyclopia falcata (Harv.) Kies (= Cyclopia subternata Vogel) 
- Cyclopia galioides (Bergius) DC.
- Cyclopia genistoides (L.) Vent.
- Cyclopia intermedia E. Mey.
- Cyclopia alopecuroides A.L. Schutte
- Cyclopia aurescens Kies
- Cyclopia bolusii Hofmeyr & E. Phillips
- Cyclopia bowieana Harv.
- Cyclopia glabra (Hofmeyr & E. Phillips) A.L. Schutte
- Cyclopia meyeriana Walp.
- Cyclopia filiformis Kies
- Cyclopia longifolia Vogel
- Cyclopia maculata (Andrews) Kies
- Cyclopia plicata Kies
- Cyclopia pubescens Eckl. & Zeyh.
- Boatwright JS, Savolainen V, Van Wyk B-E, Schutte-Vlok AL, Forest F., Van der Bank M. (2008). "Systematic position of the anomalous genus Cadia and the phylogeny of the tribe Podalyrieae (Fabaceae)". Syst Bot 33 (1): 133–147. doi:10.1600/036364408783887500.
- Cardoso D, Pennington RT, de Queiroz LP, Boatwright JS, Van Wyk B-E, Wojciechowski MF, Lavin M. (2013). "Reconstructing the deep-branching relationships of the papilionoid legumes". S Afr J Bot 89: 58–75. doi:10.1016/j.sajb.2013.05.001.
- International Organization for Plant Information (IOPI). "Plant Name Search Results" (HTML). International Plant Names Index. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
- Schutte AL. (1997). "Systematics of the genus Cyclopia Vent.". Edinburgh J Bot 54 (2): 125–170. doi:10.1017/S0960428600004005.
- Boulger, George Simonds (1891). "Ibbetson, Agnes". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography 28. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Ibbetsonia, Curtis's Botanical Magazine (t. 1259, 1810)
- "Agricultural Research Council—Botanical information". arc.agric.za. Retrieved 2012-09-16.
- "Phenolic metabolites from honeybush tea (Cyclopia subternata)". cat.inist.fr. Retrieved 2012-09-16.
- "Agri-Probe" (PDF). www.elsenburg.com. Retrieved 2012-09-16.
-  Archived October 3, 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- "Honeybush Tea—Organic Honeybush Tea is caffeine free". www.montegotea.com. Retrieved 2012-09-16.
- de Beer D, Jerz G, Joubert E, Wray V, Winterhalter P. (2009). "Isolation of isomangiferin from honeybush (Cyclopia subternata) using high-speed counter-current chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography". J Chromatogr A 1216 (19): 4282–9. doi:10.1016/j.chroma.2009.02.056. PMID 19272608.
- Kokotkiewicz A, Luczkiewicz M. (2009). "Honeybush (Cyclopia sp.)—a rich source of compounds with high antimutagenic properties". Fitoterapia 80 (1): 3–11. doi:10.1016/j.fitote.2008.11.001. PMID 19032980.
- "ILDIS LegumeWeb entry for Cyclopia". International Legume Database & Information Service. Cardiff School of Computer Science & Informatics. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
- USDA, ARS, National Genetic Resources Program. "GRIN species records of Cyclopia". Germplasm Resources Information Network—(GRIN) [Online Database]. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
- Honeybush by Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Traditional Medicine, Portland, Oregon
- Honeybush by Liesl van der Walt, South African National Biodiversity Institute. Relates mostly to coastal honeybush Cyclopia genistoides.
- Honeybush tea health benefits article.
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