Vanilla

Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily obtained from the seed pods of the flat-leaved Mexican and Central American species, Vanilla planifolia. Because the plant is not self-pollinating in most growing regions, its pods can only be produced through pollination, a limitation first understood in 1837 by the Belgian botanist Charles Francois Antoine Morren, whose method of artificial pollination proved financially unworkable; in 1841 Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old enslaved child on the French island of Reunion, discovered that the plant could instead be hand-pollinated, a technique that allowed vanilla's global cultivation and for which he is now credited, after a rival botanist's competing claim to the discovery was found to be false.