Taxonomy and classification of cacao

Taxonomy and classification of cacao Ranjana Bhattacharjee, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Nigeria; and Malachy Akoroda, Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Nigeria

1 Introduction

2 Taxonomy and classification

3 The three groups of cocoa varieties

4 Conclusions

5 Where to look for further information

6 References

Cacao is one of the economically important tree crops in West and Central Africa and is native to the tropical forests of South America. The botanical name of cacao is Theobroma cacao, first defined by Carolus Linnaeus, the father of modern-day taxonomic plant classification, and was published in his classic book, Systema Naturae in the mid-1700s. Theobroma is a Greek word that can be translated as ‘Food of Gods’: ‘theos’ meaning ‘god’ and ‘broma’ meaning ‘food’ (Wikipedia, 2013). The word ‘cacao’ is derived from the Olmec and the subsequent Mayan languages (Kakaw), and the word ‘chocolate’ is derived from the Nahuatl (the Aztec language) term ‘cacahuatl’, which is in turn derived from Olmec/Mayan etymology (Dillinger et al., 2000). The other common names are cocoa (English), cacaoyer (French), cacaoeiro/cacau (Portuguese/Brazil), kakao (Swedish), árbol del cacao/cacaotero/calabacillo/forester (Spanish) and echter Kakaobaum (German). There is archaeological evidence that the Mayans cultivated cacao 2000-4000 years before the Spanish arrived in South America (Bergmann, 1969; Purdy and Schmidt, 1996; Whitlock et al., 2001; Henderson et al., 2007; Powis et al., 2011).