Welcome back everyone to the Epic Gardening podcast.

As I mentioned in a recent episode, I was up at the San Diego Botanic Garden for the

world of house plants exhibit and saw the corpse plant in real life, which you really

do have to see it to believe it.

It seems like something that at least I feel Dr. Seuss would have maybe drawn, just doesn't

feel real.

We have Ari Novi back in the show, he's the president and CEO up at the San Diego Botanic

Garden.

I think we could of course talk a little more about the course plant Ari, but is there anything

else at the Botanic Garden that is sort of shockingly common, but you don't see the plant

that often?

Oh yeah, you know, those are some of the plants that people get the most excited about.

And I would say, I'm off and asked, what's my favorite plant and I can't choose because

they're like my kids.

But what I usually respond is that it's the chocolate tree, the aburuma cacao, which

we think comes from the Amazon, but was moved around quite a bit in pre-Columbian times

by indigenous people throughout the Americas because it's such an awesome plant.

This is the plant that really chocolate comes from, but it's a true tropical, you really

can't grow it outdoors in San Diego and so most people have never seen it.

It's really cool.

It produces these pods, you know, we call them the cacao pods, which are typically orange,

yellow or red at maturity.

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