82 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
each bundle.’ The gynæceum is superior, formed like that of the 
Byttneriads of an ovary, with five oppositipetalous cells, sur- 
mounted by a style, with five stigmatiferous branches. But in the 
interior angle of each cell there is a placenta bearing an indefinite 
number of anatropous ovules, arranged in two transverse vertical 
series, with their raphes turned towards each other. The fruit is a 
kind of berry* with a slightly fleshy wall, and which in the most 
useful species of the common Cacao tree‘ has almost the shape of a 
cucumber. 
Its exterior surface is rugose, mammillate, and traversed 
by ten equidistant longitudinal projections. 
The mesocarp is 
Theobroma Cacao. 

Fie. 125. 
Flower (£). 
Fie. 127. 
Longitudinal section of flower. 
variable in colour’ slightly fleshy, and indefinitely dried at ma- 
turity. The endocarp continues at first like a soft pulp’ in which 

4 
1 In this case the third anther is superior and 
mesial. 
2? They have three coats. 
3 It is described by most authors as a drupe 
with a woody and plurilocular stone. “ Fructus 
drupaceus, patumine lignoso 5-loculari? (B. 
H., Gen.) But when it is ripe and still fresh, it 
is fleshy to the surface of the seeds. There is 
then a thin irregularly interrupted zone, which 
at a certain distance outside the internal surface 
of the endocarp is noticeable by its slightly woody 
consistency ; but this appearance is due to fibro- 
vascular fascicles tolerably near each other, and 
the zone has not the characters of a real stone, 
4 T, Cacao L., Spee., 1100.—DC., Prodr., n, 
1.— Cacao sativa LAMx., Til, t. 653.—C. minus 
G#RTN., t. 122.—C. Theobroma Tuss., Fl. Ant., 
t. 13. 
5 Varying from pale yellow to bright red or 
violet-purple, and very variable also as to its 
more or less elongated form, and the greater or 
less distinctness of the linear projections or of the 
longitudinal grooves and of the inequalities of the 
surface. Whence the possibility of distinguish- 
ing several varieties and races, whose qualities 
are slightly different, as happens in most of the 
cultivated fruit trees. 
6 Its origin is still unknown, and can only be 
certainly determined by the study of its develop- 
ment. It must not be admitted at first-sight 
that in its fleshy consistency it is analogous to 
the hairs which envelope the seeds of Ærioden- 
