Theobroma cacao priests lancing their ear lobes (autosacrifice) and covering the cacao with blood as a suitable sacrifice to the gods. The cacao beverage as ritual was used only by men, as it was believed to be toxic for women and children. The first European knowledge about chocolate came in the form of a beverage which was first introduced to the Spanish at their meeting with Moctezuma in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1519. Cortés and others noted the vast quantities of this beverage the Aztec emperor consumed, and how it was carefully whipped by his attendants beforehand. Examples of cacao
Tree and frost, and the seed germinates in the spring. Pine cones may similarly be hoarded by red squirrels, and grizzly bears may help to disperse the seed by raiding squirrel caches. The single extant species of Ginkgophyta ("Ginkgo biloba") has fleshy seeds produced at the ends of short branches on female trees, and "Gnetum", a tropical and subtropical group of gymnosperms produce seeds at the tip of a shoot axis. The earliest trees were tree ferns, horsetails and lycophytes, which grew in forests in the Carboniferous period. The first tree may have been "Wattieza", fossils of which have been found