of
prosperous leaves, and its quaintness to its pods.

[Illustration: CACAO TREE, SHOWING PODS GROWING FROM TRUNK.]

[Illustration: FLOWERS AND FRUITS ON MAIN BRANCHES OF A CACAO TREE.
(Reproduced from van Hall's _Cocoa_, by permission of Messrs. Macmillan
& Co.).]

_The Flowers, Leaves and Fruit._

Although cacao trees are not unlike the fruit trees of England, there
are differences which, when first one sees them, cause expressions of
surprise and pleasure to leap to the lips. One sees what one never saw
before, the fruit springing from the main trunk, quite close to the
ground. An old writer has explained that this is due to a wise
providence, because the pod is so heavy that if it hung from the end of
the branches it would fall off before it reached maturity. The old
writer talks of providence; a modern writer would see in the same facts
a simple example of evolution. On the same cacao tree every day of the
year may be found flowers, young podkins and mature pods side by side. I
say "found" advisedly--at the first glance one does not see the flowers
because they are so dainty and so small. The buds are the size of rice
grains, and the flowers are not more than half an inch across when the
petals are fully out. The flowers are pink or yellow, of wax-like
appearance, and have no odour. They were commonly stated to be
pollinated by thrips and other insects. Dr. von Faber of Java has
recently shown that whilst self-pollination is the rule, cross
fertilisation occurs between the flowers on adjacent or interlocking
trees. These graceful flowers are so small that one can walk through a
plantation without observing them, although an average tree will produce
six thousand blossoms in a year. Not more than one per cent. of these
will become fruit. Usually it takes six months for the bud to develop
into the mature fruit. The lovely mosses that grow on the stems and
branches are sometimes so thick that they have to be destroyed, or the
fragile cacao flower could not push its way through. Whilst the flowers
are small, the leaves are large, being as an average about a foot in
length and four inches in breadth. The cacao tree never appears naked,
save on the rare occasions when it is stripped by the wind, and the
leaves are green all the year round, save when they are red, if the
reader will pardon an Hibernianism. And indeed there is something
contrary in the crimson tint, for whilst we usually associate this with
old l