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was thought to produce a sort of Gamboge of inferior quality.. In 

 1847 specimens of the tree and its exudation were obtained near 

 Nuggur on the ghauts of Mysox-e by Dr Hugh Cleghorn of the East 

 India Company's service ; and the author, on examining the Gam- 

 boge, found it all but identical with that of Ceylon in physio- 

 logical action, in properties as a pigment, and in chemical con- 

 stitution. The same plant, with its Gamboge, was about the same 

 time observed by the Rev. F. Mason, near Mergui in Tavoy, one 

 of the ceded Burmese provinces. 



A third species, inhabiting the province of Tavoy, and also pro- 

 ducing a kind of Gamboge, was identified by Dr Wight in 1840 

 with Dr Wallich's Garcinia elliptica, from Sylhet, on the north-east 

 frontier of Bengal. Its exudation was long thought to be of low 

 quality. But, although this substance has not yet been examined 

 chemically, it has been stated by Mr Mason to be, in his opinion, 

 quite undistinguishable as a pigment from Siam Gamboge. 



It is a matter of doubt whether Graham's character is sufficiently 

 diagnostic to be a good generic distinction. But it was shewn by 

 Dr Wight in 1840, that a well chai-acterised section at least of the 

 genus Garcinia consists of species which have " sessile anthers, flat- 

 tened above, circumscissile, and one-celled ;" and that all these spe- 

 cies, and no others, appear to exude a gum-resin differing probably 

 very little from commercial Gamboge. 



Still the tree which produces Siam Gamboge, the finest and only 

 commercial kind, continues unknown. A strong presumption how- 

 ever arose, that the last species was the Siam tree, as it grows in 

 the same latitude with the Gamboge district of Siam, and not above 

 200 miles farther west. But if the information recently communi- 

 cated to the author be correct, the Siam tree is a fourth dis- 

 tinct species of the same section. In December last he received 

 from Mr Robert Little, surgeon at Singapore, specimens taken from 

 two trees which were cultivated there by Dr Almeida, a resident of 

 the colony, and which were obtained by him " direct from Siam" 

 as the Gamboge tree of that country. These specimens are not 

 such as to allow of a complete description ; yet they are sufficient 

 to shew that the plant presents the characters of Wight's Gamboge- 

 bearing section of the genus Garcinia ; but that it is not any of the 

 species hitherto so fully described as to admit of comparison with it. 

 The fruit is round, not grooved, crowned by a four-lobed knotty stigma. 



