Palicourea is a plant genus in the family Rubiaceae. It contains about 200 species, which range in habit from shrubs to small trees, and is distributed throughout the New World tropics. These plants are very closely related to Psychotria and in particular its subgenus Heteropsychotria. Indeed, it seems to be nothing else but a distinctively-flowered offshoot of Heteropsychotria; arguably, it would thus need to be merged into Psychotria to make that genus monophyletic. But on the other hand, Psychotria is extremely diverse already, so it is probably more practical to move the more distantly related species out of this genus and merge Heteropsychotria with Palicourea.