Cocoa bean

Cocoa (Theobroma Cacoa L.) has long been growing in the St Vincent Botanical Garden. In his co-called Hortus (c.1806) Alexander Anderson states that he brought ‘Seeds of it … from Trinidad in 1786’. It is listed in Anderson’s March 1791 plant catalogue under ‘The most valuable in Medicine and Commerce’ category of plant; he states he has several plants. At this stage the Garden was 16 acres in size and worked by 12 enslaved African labourers.

The plant was listed in 1791 as Theobroma cacao but is listed as Theobrama Icaco in his December 1792 plant catalogue, and it was one of the plants put on board Bligh’s ship Providence to go to London after the Breadfruit and other plants had been dropped off for Anderson in January 1793.

In the extended text of his Hortus, Anderson notes that the plant ‘is not cultivated in the English Island but would be a valuable production in the cold back lands in which the cane will not grow…is an elegant tree, very ornamental with its clusters of yellow pods hanging from its trunk and larger branches. when ripe the fruit is… the shape and colour of a musk melon about 1/3 the size, the seeds are covered with a sweet pulp which the [enslaved Africans] are fond of. The husk that covers the seeds are generally thrown away [but] make an excellent substitute for tea, [it is] very nutritive & wholesome, particularly in pectoral complaints. It is not a native of the Islands but originally introduced from the Continent.’ He notes elsewhere it is native of South America.

In his writings about the island of St Vincent he notes that the French settlers had small plantations that grew coffee and cocoa, and that the upper parts of the St Vincent known as Buccamont, which was 'in great part... its natural state’, once cleared ‘of its nature woods [would be] well fitted, for the cultivation of coffee & cocoa’.

Today cocoa is grown on the island in the village of Greggs where I have bought some on my visits there. The St Vincent Cocoa Company is based in Kingstown and produces amazing chocolate too which I can highly recommend. Island Chocolate, in the UK, originally started with Vincentian Chocolate. So the product and Alexander Anderson has a history that stems back 239 years, but as the French settlers were growing cocoa on the island before Anderson's time, it doubtless has a far longer legacy.

Note: neither company has given money for this publicity; put it would be lovely if either of them would like to sponsor the guidebook and a section on this plant species ;o)

Image from the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh Botanic Stories

https://stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/10278