We have found a third species of cacao in Guatemala, Theobroma angustifolium. Took several weeks and several field trips to locate this. Theobroma angustifolium is known as cacao Silvestre, cacao de mico, cacao de mono, and other words (depending on which country in Mesoamerica you ask).
Almost every botanical monograph says that Theobroma angustifolium is from Costa Rica and that in Guatemala it grows only in plantations (meaning it does not grow in the wild and is not native).
We now estimate that 90% of any Theobroma angustifolium in Guatemala seen or heard about by Standley, Steyermark, Record, Williams, or botanists of the Field Museum of Natural History between 1920 and 1980 is now gone. Local people chop down the trees because they do not produce as much as modern varieties of Theobroma cacao. Theobroma angustifolium puts out thousands of beautiful flowers but few fruits.
When we asked all our cacao contacts in cacao growing regions of Guatemala, only one felt he could find some.. After several weeks (and driving about 2000 km back and forth, back and forth) we finally found one tree. The tree was very old, even older than most pataxte trees (Theobroma bicolor).
So now for 2015 we have added a page on Theobroma angustifolium.
Posted Jan 8, 2015
