D. de Quelus

“ 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. ”

“ The Cocao-Tree is moderately tall and thick, and either thrives, or not, according to the Quality of the Soil wherein it grows: Upon the Coast of Caraqua, for instance, it grows considerably larger than in the Islands belonging to the French. ”

“ Oexmelin [11] and several others have imagined, that a Cocao-Kernel was composed of five or six Parts sticking fast together; Father Plumier himself fell into this Error, and has led others into it. [12] If the Kernel be cut in two length-ways, one finds at the Extremity of the great end, a kind of a longish Grain, [13] one fifth of an Inch long, and one fourth Part as broad, which is the Germ, or first Rudiments of the Plant; but in European Kernels this Part is placed at the other end. ”

“ The Blossoms, which are regular and like a Rose, but very small, and without smell, proceed from the Places from which the old Leaves fall, as it were in Bunches. A large Quantity of these fall off, for hardly Ten of a Thousand come to good, insomuch that the Earth underneath seems cover'd over with them. ”

“ The Leaves are about nine Inches long, and four in breadth, where they are broadest; for they grow less towards the two Extremities, where they terminate in a point: their Colour is a little darkish, but more bright above than underneath ”

“ 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. [2]
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 Cocoeiers, the Apricots of St. ”