When the Buds begin to blow, one may consider the Calix, the Foliage, and the Heart of the Blossom. The Calix is formed of the Cover of the Bud, divided into five Parts, or Leaves, of a very pale flesh-colour. These are succeeded by the five true Leaves of the same Colour, which fill up the empty Spaces or Partitions of the Calix. These Leaves have two Parts, the undermost of which is like an oblong Cup, striped with Purple; on the inside, it bends towards the Center by the help of a Stamen, which serves to fasten it; from this proceeds outwardly, the other Part of the Leaf, which seems to be separate from it, and is formed like the End of a Pike.
The Heart is composed of five Threads and five Stamina, with the Pistilla in the middle. The Threads are strait, and of a purple Colour, and placed over-against the Intervals of the Leaves. The Stamina are white, and bend outwardly with a kind of a Button on the top, which insinuates itself into the middle of each Leaf to sustain itself.
When one looks at these small Objects through a Microscope, one is ready to say, That the Point of the Threads is like Silver, and that the Stamina are Chrystal; as well as the Pistilla, which Nature seems to have placed in the Center, either to be the Primitiæ of the young Fruit, or to serve to defend it, if it be true that this Embryo unfolds itself, and is produced in no other place but the Base.
For want of observing these small Parts, as well as the Bulk of the Blossom, F. Plumier had no distinct Knowledge of them, nor has he exactly design’d them, any more than Mons. Tournefort, who has done them after his Draught [(b)].
The Cocao-Tree almost all the Year bears Fruit of all Ages, which ripen successively, but never grow on the end of little Branches, as our Fruits in Europe do, but along the Trunk and the chief Boughs, which is not rare in these Countries, where several Trees do the like; such as the [(1)] Cocoeiers, the [(2)] Apricots of St. Domingo, the [(3)] Calebashes, the [(4)] Papaws, &c.
Such an unusual Appearance would seem strange in the Eyes of Europeans, who had never seen any thing of that kind; but if one examines the Matter a little, the philosophical Reason of this Disposition is very obvious. One may easily apprehend, that if Nature had placed such bulky Fruit at the Ends of the Branches, their great Weight must necessarily break them, and the Fruit would fall before it came to Maturity.
The Fruit of the Cocao-Tree is contained in a Husk or Shell, which from an exceeding small Beginning, attains, in the space of four Months, to the Bigness and Shape of a Cucumber; the lower End is sharp and furrow’d length-ways like a Melon [(c)].
This Shell in the first Months is either red or white, or a Mixture of red and yellow: This Variety of Colours makes three sorts of Cocao-Trees, which have nothing else to distinguish them but this, which I do not think sufficient to make in reality three different kinds of Cocao-Nuts [(d)].
The First is of a dark vinous Red, chiefly on the sides, which becomes more bright and pale as the Fruit ripens.
The Second, which is the White, or rather is at first of so pale a Green, that it may be mistaken for White; by little and little it assumes a Citron Colour, which still growing deeper and deeper, at length becomes entirely yellow.