Botany and Morphology Cocoa Plants

 

Cocoa Plant Classification
Division           : Spermatophyta

Class               : Dicotyledonae
Nation             : Malvales
Tribe                : Sterculiaceae
Marga             : Theobroma
Type                : Theobroma cacao L 

1. Roots:
Cocoa is a plant with feeder root surface (mostly developing lateral roots near the soil surface).
Thickness of rooting zone in the good soil is 30-50 cm.
At low soil water soil, roots grow long and riding the lateral roots into the soil, whereas at high soil water & clay soil, the roots do not grow up riding so deep and lateral roots grow near the soil surface. 
2. Stems and branches:
The original habitat of the cocoa plant is a tropical forest with a canopy of tall trees, rainfall and humidity is high, so the plants grow tall.
In the garden, plant height was 3 years at 1.8 - 3 meters and at the age of 12 years reached 4.5 - 7 meters.
Cocoa crop is dimorphous (two forms have branches) namely orthotrop branches (branches that grow upward) and plagiotrop (branches that grow sideways).  

3. Leaves:
Leaves on main stem and branches have orthotrop formula leaves 3 / 8 and the formula has cabag plagiotrop ½ leaves.
30 cm long and 7.5 cm wide. 

 

 

Image : Leaves cocoa with three times the germination 

 
Image : Cocoa leaf image  
4. Interest
• Flowers are cauliflorous cocoa means growing flowers and fruit grow attached to the stem or branch.
• Cocoa plant as many as 6000 flowers to bloom, about 5% of the fruit.
• The flowers are small, reddish-white color and odorless.
• Consists of 2 groups based on the nature of interest:
Self-fertile or self-compatible, the cocoa plant that flowers can be fertilized by pollen from flowers of the  plant itself or the self-sterile. Self-sterile or self incompatibel the cocoa plant that only flowers can be fertilized by pollen from flowers of other clones.
 


May Be Useful