fruiting cocoa tree

One of the most exciting plants at Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, MI is the cocoa tree. It is strikingly tall and skinny. This tree grows in the understorey of the taller trees.

I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all if it weren't for the cocoa tree's peculiar habit of sprouting flowers from its trunk. (If you look closely at the photo, you can see many little flowers hanging down from all heights of the tree trunk.)

A volunteer at Meijer Gardens pointed out the green pod forming where a flower had formerly been, high up on the trunk. (Half-hidden by the right-hand half of the "y" shaped branching.) It is the first cocoa tree fruit/pod at Meijer Gardens! When ripe, it will be about the size of a football.

More facts about the cocoa tree's growth, uses, and history can be found at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii. Good photos of the cocoa tree are at this site, too.


According to the National Confectioners Association, US chocolate manufacturers use 3.5 million pounds of whole milk every day to make chocolate. Visit the National Confectioners Association website to learn more about the history of manufacturing chocolate goods from cocoa seeds.

A beautiful breadfruit tree

Last week we visited the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Among the many and varied gardens was an enormous indoor tropical conservatory stocked with a huge variety of living tropical plants from around the world.

I couldn't take enough digital images -- there was so much color and variety! The experience of walking through the tropical garden is with me forever. Wandering in the presence of so many thriving tropical plants was exhilarating, soothing, and refreshing.



One tree in particular was irresistibly huggable: the breadfruit tree. There was something about the way it leaned over the path we were walking along . . . High up among the leaves we could see breadfruit.

Of course, as soon as we got home, I had to learn all about this tree:

• The cargo carried on the ill-fated 1787 trip of Captain William Bligh in the HMS Bounty was breadfruit trees. (The trees were all thrown overboard by the mutineers.)

• Latex is derived from numerous parts of the tree.

• Each breadfruit tree can produce about 200 large fruits per year.

• It is called breadfruit, because when roasted, the fruit smells something like bread.

Breadfruit tree bark is smooth-ish.

• Breadfruit replaces potatoes or pasta or bread in meals.

(These and many other fascinating facts about breadfruit can be found at the website for the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii.)

High above the floor of the Frederik Meijer tropical garden we could see a ripening breadfruit. (About the size of a cantaloupe melon.)