Theobroma cacao beans, along with other agricultural products, were brought back to Spain at that time, but it seems the beverage made from cacao was introduced to the Spanish court in 1544 by Kekchi Maya nobles brought from the New World to Spain by Dominican friars to meet Prince Philip. Within a century, chocolate had spread to France, England and elsewhere in Western Europe. Demand for this beverage led the French to establish cacao plantations in the Caribbean, while Spain subsequently developed their cacao plantations in their Venezuelan and Philippine colonies (Bloom 1998, Coe 1996). A painting by Dutch Golden Age artist
Dresden Botanical Garden unusual "Quercus phellos" as well as "Corydalis nobilis", "Hamamelis", rhododendrons, magnolias, and so forth; a systematic section; an alpine garden collecting a variety of European high mountain plants, including gentian ("Gentiana"), species of saxifrage ("Saxifraga"), "Dianthus caryophyllus", numerous cruciferous plants and primroses; and a garden that contains poisonous, curative, and medicinal plants. The garden also contains five greenhouses of about 1,000 m² total area, containing some 3,000 species, as well as an aquatic greenhouse for "Victoria cruziana" and plants from tropical America including "Ananas comosus", "Tillandsia usneoides", "Theobroma cacao", epiphytic bromeliads, etc. The Great Tropical House (Paläotropis) contains tropical flora