e) Description of the Beans.
The varieties of the cacao tree which yield the beans at the present time occurring in commerce are.
Theobroma cacao, Linné the true cacao, spread over the widest area, and almost exclusively cultivated on plantations, with many varieties (Crillo, Forastero etc.) and Theobroma bicolor, a party-coloured cacao tree the seeds of which are mixed with Brazilian and Caracas beans.
Theobroma speciosum Wildenow, which yields, like Theobroma cacao, Brazilian beans (magnificent tree).
Theobroma quayanense, yielding Guiana beans.
Theobroma silvestre or forest cacao.
Theobroma subincanum, white-leaved-cacao, and Theobroma microcarpum, small-fruited cacao, are met with as admixtures in Brazilian beans.
Theobroma glaucum, grey cacao, fruits of which variety are found among Caracas beans.
Theobroma angustifolium the narrow-leaved and Theobroma ovatifolium, oval leaf, may be regarded as characteristic of Mexican cacao.
Before describing the commercial kinds of cacao, a knowledge of which is of first importance to manufacturers, it is desirable to consider the beans in regard to external form and microscopial structure, in order that the use of some indispensable scientific expressions in the subsequent description of particular commercial kinds of cacao may be intelligible.