Theobroma angustifolia

• Interesting Facts
• Description
• Taxonomy
• Similar Species
• More Info
• Further Reading
• Notes

Interesting Facts

Description

Family Malvaceae

Herbs, shrubs , or less often trees ; indumentum usually with peltate scales or stellate hairs . Leaves alternate, stipulate , petiolate ; leaf blade usually palmately veined, entire or various lobed . Flowers solitary, less often in small cymes or clusters , axillary or subterminal , often aggregated into terminal racemes or panicles, usually conspicuous , actinomorphic , usually bisexual (unisexual in Kydia) . Epicalyx often present, forming an involucre around calyx, 3- to many lobed. Sepals 5, valvate , free or connate . Petals 5, free, contorted, or imbricate, basally adnate to base of filament tube . Stamens usually very many, filaments connate into tube; anthers 1-celled. Pollen spiny . Ovary superior, with 2-25 carpels, often separating from one another and from axis; ovules 1 to many per locule; style as many or 2 × as many as pistils, apex branched or capitate. Fruit a loculicidal capsule or a schizocarp, separating into individual mericarps, rarely berrylike when mature (Malvaviscus) ; carpels sometimes with an endoglossum (a crosswise projection from back wall of carpel to make it almost completely septate . Seeds often reniform , glabrous or hairy , sometimes conspicuously so.

About 100 genera and ca. 1000 species: tropical and temperate regions of N and S Hemisphere; 19 genera (four introduced ) and 81 species (24 endemic, 16 introduced) in China.

Molecular studies have shown that the members of the Bombacaceae, Malvaceae, Sterculiaceae, and Tiliaceae form a very well-defined monophyletic group that is divided into ten also rather well-defined clades, only two of which correspond to the traditional families Bombacaceae and Malvaceae. Some of the remaining groups are included entirely within either of the remaining families but others cut across the traditional divide between the Sterculiaceae and Tiliaceae. A majority of authors , most notably Bayer and Kubitzki (Fam. Gen. Vasc. Pl. 5: 225-311. 2003), has favored including everything within a greatly enlarged Malvaceae, and treating the individual clades as subfamilies. The alternative view is that the individual clades should be treated as a series of ten families: Bombacaceae (Bombacoideae), Brownlowiaceae (Brownlowioideae), Byttneriaceae (Byttnerioideae), Durionaceae (Durionoideae), Helicteraceae (Helicteroideae), Malvaceae (Malvoideae), Pentapetaceae (Dombeyoideae), Sparrmanniaceae (Grewioideae), Sterculiaceae (Sterculioideae), and Tiliaceae (Tilioideae) (Cheek in Heywood et al. , Fl. Pl. Fam. World. 201-202. 2007) . For the present treatment, we prefer to retain the familiar, traditional four families, so as to maintain continuity with the treatments in FRPS, and to await a consensus on the two alternative strategies for dealing with the very widely accepted clades.

The traditional Malvaceae coincides exactly with one of the major clades. The only possible problem is the relationship with the Bombacaceae, which also has primarily 1-loculed anthers, and some authorities have suggested that the Bombacaceae should be included within the Malvaceae.

Members of the Malvaceae are important as fiber crops (particularly cotton, Gossypium) . Young leaves of many species can be used as vegetables, and species of Abelmoschus and Hibiscus are grown as minor food crops. Many species have attractive flowers and an ever-increasing selection is grown as ornamentals . Several have been cultivated for a very long time, particularly species of Hibiscus, and some of these are not known in the wild.[1]

Genus Theobroma

Trees . Leaves alternate, large and entire. Inflorescence 1-flowered or cymose , usually on trunk or major branches. Flowers bisexual , small and perfect . Calyx 5-lobed, divided nearly to base . Petals 5, lower part deeply concave , middle part becoming narrow, upper spatulate . Stamens in 5 groups of 1-3, alternate with staminodes; filaments connate at base into tube ; staminodes 5. Ovary sessile, 5-celled; ovules many per locule; stigma 5-lobed. Fruit large, drupaceous . Seeds many, embedded in pulp; cotyledons fleshy ; endosperm absent.

About 22 species: tropical America; one species (introduced ) in China.[2]

Taxonomy

Similar Species

Members of the genus Theobroma

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 15 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

T. angustifolium (Theobroma) · T. bicolor (Theobroma) · T. cacao (Cacao) · T. cacao amelonado type (Amelonado Cocoa) · T. cacao cacao (Cacao) · T. cacao sphaerocarpum (Cacao) · T. cacao subsp. sphaerocarpum (Cacao) · T. grandiflorum (Copoasu) · T. mammosum (Theobroma) · T. microcarpum (Wild Cacao) · T. purpureum (Wild Cocoa) · T. simiarum (Theobroma) · T. speciosum (Monkey Cocoa) · T. sphaerocarpum sphaerocarpum (Cacao) · T. subincanum (Wild Cacao)

More Info

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Further Reading

• A handbook of tropical gardening and planting, with special reference to Ceylon, by H. F. Macmillan. .. Colombo, H.W. Cave & co., 1914. url p. 476.
• A year of Costa Rican natural history, by Amelia Smith Calvert. .. and Philip Powell Calvert. .. with maps and illustrations. New York, The Macmillan company, 1917. url p. 390, p. 546.
• Agricultural news. Bridgetown, Barbados, Bowen & sons;1902-22. url p. 427.
• Appletons' popular science monthly. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1895-1900. url p. 718.
• Biologia centrali-americana; or, Contributions to the knowledge of the fauna and flora of Mexico and Central America. London, Pub. for the editors by R. H. Porter and Dulau & co., 1879-88. url , .
• Bulletin of miscellaneous information /Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 1912 London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1900-1941. url p. 64.
• Cacao culture in the West Indies. .. Havana, German Kali works[ca.1910] url .
• "Cacao"; a treatise on the cultivation and curing of "cacao". Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 1900. url .
• Cacao, a manual on the cultivation and curing of cacao, London, Duckworth and co., 1911. url , , , , , , .
• Cacao, a treatise on the cultivation and curing of cacao, by J. Hinchley Hart. Trinidad, Printed at the Mirror Office, 1900. url p. 60.
• Cocoa and chocolate; a short history of their production and use, with a full and particular account of their properties, and of the various methods of preparing them for food. Dorchester, Mass.W. Baker1886 url p. 8.
• Cocoa, its cultivation and preparation. London, Murray, 1912. url p. 5.
• Cocoa. By Dr. C. J. J. van Hall. London: Macmillan and Co., limited, 1914. url p. 514, p. 63.
• Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 35 1968 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1890- url p. 391, p. 393, p. 409.
• Cyclopedia of American horticulture, comprising suggestions for cultivation of horticultural plants, descriptions of the species of fruits, vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants sold in the United States and Canada, together with geo by L.H. Bailey assisted by Wilhelm Miller, PH. D., associate editor, and many expert cultivators and botanists. Illustrated with nearly three thousand engravings and one hundred and forty-five full-pa New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1906. url p. 1793.
• Cyclopedia of farm crops, New York, The Macmillan company, 1922. url p. 224, p. 697.
• Cyclopedia of farm crops, a popular survey of crops and crop-making methods in the United States and Canada; New York, The Macmillan company, 1922. url .
• Cyclopedia of farm crops: a popular survey of crops and crop-making methods in the United States and Canada / edited by L.H. Bailey. New York: Macmillan, 1922, c1907. url p. 224, p. 697.
• Journal of the New York Botanical Garden. 25 1924 Lancaster, Pa.: Published for the Garden by the New Era Printing Co., 1900- url p. 12, p. 336.
• Official guide to the Botanic Gardens, Dominica: illustrated: with an index of the principal plants. Dominica: The Garden, 1922? url p. 31.
• The colony of British Honduras: its resources and prospects; with particular reference to its indigenous plants and economic productions / by D. Morris. London: Edward Stanford, 1883. url p. 72.
• The standard cyclopedia of horticulture; a discussion, for the amateur, and the professional and commercial grower, of the kinds, characteristics and methods of cultivation of the species of plants grown in the regions of the United States a Illustrated with colored plates, four thousand engravings in the text, and ninety-six full-page cuts. New York, Macmillan, 1919 [c1914] url p. 3330.
• The tropical agriculturist. Colombo, Ceylon: A.M. & J. Ferguson, 1882- url p. 17.
• Feng Kuo-mei. 1984. Malvaceae. In: Feng Kuo-mei, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 49(2): 1-102.
• Hsue Hsiang-hao. 1984. Sterculiaceae. In: Feng Kuo-mei, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 49(2): 112-189.

Notes

Contributors

• Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed January 10, 2012.

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal March 17, 2008:

• Missouri Botanical Garden

Identifiers

• Biodiversity Heritage Library NamebankID: 8466819
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility Taxonkey: 15871216
• Globally Unique Identifier: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:825560-1
• International Plant Names Index (IPNI) ID: 825560-1
• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 2067234

Footnotes

1. Ya Tang, Michael G. Gilbert & Laurence J. Dorr "Malvaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 12 Page 240, 264,299, 302. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
2. Ya Tang, Michael G. Gilbert & Laurence J. Dorr "Theobroma". in Flora of China Vol. 12 Page 302, 321. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]

©2004-2012 David Stang. All rights reserved.