Theobroma L.

Trees with primary branching 3-or 5-verticillate; further branching alternate; apical growth of the stem limited to the production of a whorl (jorquette) of 3-5 spreading, verticillate branches; continuing growth of the stem sympodial, by ad-ventitious, subterminal shoots (below jorquette) (called chupons) or by pseudo--apical shoots (above jorquette) from buds axillary to the terminal verticillate branches. Leaves simple, long-petiolate and varied in phyllotaxy on the primary stem, short-petiolate and distichous on the lateral branches, penninerved or sub-palmatinerved, persistent, coriaceous or subcoriaceous; pluricellular trichomes usually as stellate hairs, rarely simple, sometimes glandular hairs. Inflorescences dichasial or monochasial, axillary or on reduced, tuberculiform branchlets on trunk and larger branches; pedicels articulate to bracteate peduncles. Flowers her-maphrodite; sepals 5, almost free and spreading or more or less united; petals 5, contorted, each one strangulated in 2 halves; lower part, corresponding to the claw, rigid and strongly veined with the shape of a hood; upper part a flat lamina, articu-lated to the inflexed apex of the claw; androecium in 2 whorls, united at base; outer whorl with 5 sterile, petaloid or linear staminodes opposite to the sepals; inner whorl with 5 fertile stamens opposite to the petals, the filaments short, shortly 2-to 3-branched, each branch with one anther; anthers hidden inside the petal-hoods, bithecate, the thecae unilocular and longitudinally dehiscent; pollen grains 3-colporate, peritreme, suboblate; gynoecium 5-carpellar, the ovary ovoid, pentag-onal, 5-celled with axile placentation; ovules many, in two rows, anatropous with two integuments and dorsal raphe; styles 5, free or more or less united, filiform; stigmas apical, short, acute. Fruit large, subbaccate or subdrupaceous, indehiscent, the pericarp fleshy or hard and partly woody or coriaceous, the vascular axis thin and vanishing; seeds usually in 5 rows, each seed surrounded by a thick, fibrosc, pulpy tissue filling the cavity at maturity, ovoid, ellipsoid or amygdaloid, the epi-sperm double, thick, subcoriaceous, the other layer with a trichomatic and gelat-inous epiderm developing into a thick, pulpy envelope; embryo straight; cotyledons thick, strongly plicate-corrugate; endosperm reduced to a filmy membrane covering the cotyledons; germination epigeous or hypogeous.