Scientific Intelligence— Botany. 365 
tended in recent times, the tree which produces it is still unknown 
to botanists. 
The late Dr Graham, in 1836, was the first to describe accurately 
a species of Garcinia, which inhabits Ceylon, and which is well 
known there to produce a sort of Gamboge, not, however, known in 
the commerce of Europe. Resting on a peculiarity in the structure 
of the anthers, which are circumscissile, or open transversely by the 
separation of a lid on the summit, he constituted a new genus for 
this plant, and called it Hebradendron cambogioides. At the same 
period the author examined the properties of this Gamboge, and 
found that it possesses the purgative action of the commercial drug 
in full intensity, and that the two kinds agree closely also, though 
not absolutely, in chemical constitution. 
At an earlier period Dr Roxburgh described, in his “ Flora In- 
dica,”’ another species of Garcinia, under the name of Garcinia pic- 
toria, which inhabits the hills of Western Mysore, and which also 
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 Mysore 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 Tavvy, 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 characterised 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 distinct 
species of the same section. In December last he received from Mr 
