Patrick Edward McGovern ca. 7000-6600 B.C. It was a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey, and grape and/or hawthorn ("Crataegus pinnatifida" and "C. cuneata") fruit. The laboratory and collaborators began studying some of the most ancient chocolate from ancient Mesoamerica (ca. 1400-1100 B.C.) in 2004 Jars from Puerto Escondido in Honduras were in the shape of the cacao ("Theobroma cacao") pod or fruit, as if to advertise the contents as being a chocolate beverage. The fruit's sweet pulp contains about 15% sugar, which naturally ferments to a 5 to 7% alcoholic beverage. This beverage might have led to the domestication of the tree.
North-West University Botanical Garden rockery. Some more common plant genera represented in the garden include Acacia, Aloe, Bonatea, Crinum, Dierama, Encephalartos, Eucomis, Eulophia, Euphorbia, Gasteria, Gladiolus, Haworthia, Hypoxis, Indigofera, Kniphofia, Plectranthus, Podocarpus, Polygala, Scadoxus, Searsia, Stapelia and Zantedeschia. In the tropical greenhouse a variety of tropical and subtropical plants from all over the world can be found. Some of the plants include a variety of food and medicinal plants including "Coffea arabica" (coffee), "Camellia sinensis" (tea), "Vanilla planifolia" (vanilla), "Saccharum officinarum" (sugarcane), "Cinnamomum zeylanicum" (cinnamon), "Oryza sativa" (rice), "Theobroma cacao" (cacao), "Siphonochilus aethiopicus" (wild ginger), "Warburghia salutaris" (pepper bark tree) and "Piper nigrum" (pepper).