III 



CHAPTER IX. 



Botany and Nomenclature of Cacao with Description of 

 Typical Forms, &c., &c. 



HE name which Linnspus conferred upon this 

 plant is derived from the Greek 1 heos (god) and 

 Broma food, or u Food for the gods." 



There are several species of the genus, which is 

 native of tropical regions extending from Mexico 

 to Brazil, and among the known species are the 

 following: Theobroma bicolor, T. yiiianensis, T. ty'vestris. T. 

 ovatifolia, T. anyustifolia, T. pentayona, all said to he distinct 

 from our cultivated Theobronta cacao, L., and its varieties which 

 is the kind from which the major quantity of the^marketable 

 product known as Cacao or " Cocoa" is dei iv ed. 



The Mexicans give to Theobroma cacao the name of Cacao- 

 quahuitl, which has been in a great measure retained in the 

 woid chocolate. Trees of Theobroma cacao grow in some places 

 to forty feet in height, the writer having seen them of this size 

 in the province of Veragua in 1885, but the usual height of the 

 Trinidad tree averages about fifteen or twenty feet, the lateral 

 diameter of its branches being about the same measurement. 

 In Grenada, Tobago and St. Vincent the trees are generally of 

 smaller size. 



The Botanical characters of the genus are given in 

 Grisebach's Flora of the British West Indies, p. 91, as follows : 



ORDER STERCULIACE/E TRIBE BUETTNERIE^. 



Calyx 5 partite, colored. Petals 5 : limb cuculhite. with a terminal, spathtt- 

 late appendage. Column 10 fid : fertile lobes bi-antheriferous : anthers bilocular. 

 Style 5~fid. Fruit baccate, ^-celled: cells fulpv. polyspermous. Embryo exal- 

 luntinous : cotyledons fleshy, corrugate. Trees; leave* entire; peC.'.. .'.s fascicled or 

 solitary, lateral. 



