Cacao and Its Allies
CACAO AND ITS ALLIES A TAXONOMIC REVISION OF THE GENUS THEOBROMA Jose Cuatrecasas Introduction "Celebrem etiam per universam Americam multique usua fructum Cacao appellatum." Clusius, 1605. "Cacao nomen barbarum, quo rejecto Theobroma dicta est arbor, cum fructus basin sternat potioni delicatissimae, Baluberrimae, maxime nutrienti, chocolate mexicanis, Euro- paeis quondam folis Magnatis propriae (ffpotfta rwf 8&av, Vos Deos feci dixit Deus de imperantibus), licet num vilior fact a." Linnaeus, Hort. Cliff. 379. 1737. Theobroma, a genus of the family Sterculiaceae, is particularly noteworthy because one of its members is the popular "cacao tree" or "cocoa tree." The uses and cultivation of this outstanding tropical plant were developed in the western hemisphere by the Mayas in Central America a long time before Europeans arrived on the con- tinent. The now universally used name cacao is derived directly from the Nahuatl "cacahuatl" or "cacahoatl," just as the name of the popular drink, chocolate, is derived from "xocoafcl" or "chocoatl." The economic importance of cacao has given rise to great activity in several fields of development and research, especially in agronomy. Historians and anthropologists have also been very much interested in learning the role played by cacao in the economy and social relations of the early American populations. There exists today an extensive literature devoted to the many problems related to cacao. I saw cacao for the first time in Colombia in 1932, but became actually interested in the genus in 1939 and the years following, when I found cacao trees growing wild in the rain forests of the Amazonian basin. I was fascinated by the unique structure of the flowers of the cocoa tree, and its extraordinary fruit.
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