Cacao Blossom

Cacao blossom is the flower of Theobroma cacao, a small evergreen tree of the Malvaceae family. The tree is native to the tropics of the Americas. The flowers are small, 1-2 cm in diameter, with a pink calyx. They are produced in clusters directly on the trunk and older branches, a habit known as cauliflory.

The floral odor of cacao has been analysed. It is a bouquet made up exclusively of saturated and unsaturated straight-chain hydrocarbons, which is unusual among floral odors. The most abundant components are tridecane, pentadecane, (Z)-7-pentadecene and (Z)-8-heptadecene, with a heptadecadiene and a heptadecatriene as minor components.

Many of the world's flowers are pollinated by bees or by butterflies and moths, but cacao flowers are pollinated by tiny flies, Forcipomyia biting midges. The tree has a highly specialized floral morphology that permits pollination primarily by Ceratopogonid midges. Midges of the family Ceratopogonidae are generally 1-3 millimetres in length. These insects do not depend upon cacao flowers for their life cycle and can use other sugar sources.

In choice assays, midges showed weak attraction to the complete natural floral odor. They were not attracted to a synthetic blend of the four major components, which indicates that a more complete blend is required for attraction.

The seeds of the tree are called cocoa beans when dried and fermented, and are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa powder, cocoa butter and chocolate. Theobroma means 'food of the gods' in Greek.

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Related: Belladona