General Information

COMMON NAMES: Cocoa Tree, Cacao, Chocolate Tree; German Kakaobaum; French Cacaotier GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION: NATIVE Mexico - Amazonia - Andes COOK ISLANDS STATUS: Introduced - Recent, Not naturalised; Land, lowlands SIGNIFICANCE LIST: Beverage (Fruit 0+) KEY FEATURES: A small tree, to about 8m. xxxxxxx FLOWERS on old branches and trunk. FRUIT narrow ovoid 'pod' to 30cm, ripening yellow, red or purple. SEEDS in a pulp, 20-50.

Cook Islands Distribution

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Southern Group: Present    Makatea:
RR	MG	AT	MK	MT	AK	PL	TK	MN
	-	-	-	-		-		-

Northern Group:
TN	MH	RK	PK	NS	SW
-	-	-	-	-	-

Theobroma cacao Linnaeus
SYNONYMS: Theobroma cacao cacao

TAXONOMY: PLANTAE; ANTHOPHYTA (=Angiospermae); MAGNOLIOPSIDA (=Dicotyledones); DILLENIIDAE; Malvales; STERCULIACEAE

SIGNIFICANCE NOTES -
POSITIVE SIGNIFICANCE: Beverage (Fruit 0+). Comments: Seeds can be home processed to make a chocolate drink - popular in Samoa. Commercially the seeds provide cocoa (for cocoa drinks) and cocoa butter (for solid chocolate).

GENERAL NOTE: In Central America the favourite drink of the Aztec nobles was 'chocolatl', a chocolate drink prepared by crushing cocoa-seeds with vanilla beans. Cocoa-seeds were introduced to Spain by the Spaniard Cortes in 1526, and used to make a very popular chocolate drink. Three hundred years later, in 1828, a Dutchman removed the solid fat, cocoa butter, from the seeds to make de-fatted chocolate, the basis of the modern cocoa drink. In the 1840s the cocoa butter was used to make solid chocolate. In the 1870s milk was added to make the first milk chocolates, the finest quality being invented by the Swiss, Rudolp Lindt, in 1879. Cocoa seeds are mainly produced in Ghana, Nigeria and Brazil.

Vouchers:
None Recorded.

References:
p.576 Neal - In Gardens of Hawaii
p.477 Tropica
p.2/398 A.C.Smith - Flora Vitiensis Nova
p.75 Wilder - Flora of Rarotonga
p.370f Whistler - Ethnobotany of the Cook Islands

Data Update History (information):
zTX, zB02, zM03a, zD02

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