Desserts · Plate II

Cacao

Theobroma cacao

A small rainforest tree that grows in the shade of taller ones. Its tiny white and pink flowers grow straight from the trunk and old branches, on small cushions in the bark, which is why the fruits hang right against the trunk. Its new leaves come out reddish.

The fruit, the pod, is ribbed along its length and takes several months to ripen: depending on the variety, it turns from green to yellow or from red to orange. Inside it holds twenty to sixty seeds wrapped in a sweet white pulp.

Its flowers are pollinated by tiny midges, and very few of them become fruit. Linnaeus named it Theobroma, Greek for “food of the gods”. The oldest traces of its use, from some 5,300 years ago, were found in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Downloads

• To printA4 · PNG
• Phone wallpaperJPG
• Desktop wallpaper4K · JPG

Free, for personal use.