18 CACAO 



pod is oval, hard, woody and half an inch or more in thick- 

 ness, with finely reticulated riblike carvings on the exterior 

 fruit wall or shell of the pod. It requires a saw or other 

 cutting instrument to open the pod, but it cracks and 

 bursts readily if forcibly cast upon the ground or other hard 

 surface. The beans are flat, oval, and covered with a 

 fibrous yellow pulp having a strong odour. When de- 

 prived of its outer skin and roasted, the bean may be used 

 in the same way as almonds, and boiled to sweetstuff with 

 sugar. The interior of the bean is perfectly white and 

 solid. It has no pronounced flavour or commercial value. 



Fig. 15. Theobkoma angustifolia, otherwise Monkey 

 Cacao or Cacao Mono grows to a larger sized tree than any 

 other species under mention, the author having seen trees 

 40 ft. in height, possessing stems a foot to 15 in. in 

 diameter. It is of no known economic value at present, 

 but was introduced with T. bicolor and T. pentagona in 

 1893, in the hope that it might prove useful as a stock on 

 which to graft the commercial form. This, however, has 

 not yet been tried, owing to the want of sufficient seedlings 

 for the purpose^ 



The botanical details of Theobroma pentagona, T. 

 bicolor, and T. angustifolia are well given in the illustra- 

 tions of Preuss' very well-known work, published by 

 Kolonial-Wirtschaftliches Komitee, 1901, Berlin, Unter 

 den Linden 40, which should be referred to by those inter- 

 ested in the botany of these species. To the cacao planter 

 it will be sufficient to say that the latter-named species, 

 Figs. 13, 14, and 15, carry certain specific distinctions which 

 clearly and distinctly separate them from any of the forms 

 of Theobroma cacao from which the main crop of com- 

 mercial cacao is derived. 



The nearest allied species to Theobroma cacao is T. 

 pentagona. The latter resembles the former in character 

 of its leaves and habit of growth so closely as to make it 

 difficult to distinguish between them, except when in 

 flower or fruit. The evidence in favour of the affinity of 

 the two species is strongly supported by the fact that seed- 



