II 
THE COCOA TREE AND ITS FRUIT 
(‘‘ Theobroma Cacao’’) 
HE term ‘‘cocoa”’ is a corruption of ‘‘ cacao,’’ but is almost uni- 
i bee used in English-speaking countries. The cacao tree 
belongs to the natural order of Sterculiacee,—a family of al- 
most 50 genera and above 600 species, all of which are tropical or 
sub-tropical. None of them grow naturally in our climate or in 
a= 
ca ne = 
Europe, and, excepting the little yellow-flowered Mahernia, they are 
very seldom seen in our conservatories. 
The first references to the tree and its products are found in the 
accounts of the explorers and conquerors who followed Columbus. 
Their descriptions are remarkably accurate in all essential particulars. 
One of the earliest, if not indeed the very earliest, delineations of the 
tree is in a rare volume by Bontekoe.' The engraving, which is here 
1 The figure in the left of the foreground is said by Bontekoe to represent the native method of pro- 
curing fire by rapidly twirling a pointed stick in a groove of a piece of wood placed on the ground. 
10 
