286 STURTEV ant's NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 



natives as the conca. The fruit is the size of a small apple and contains an acid, purple 

 pulp. Garcia d'Orta, 1563, says that it has a pleasant, though sour, taste and that the 

 fruit serves to make a vinegar. The oil from the seeds has been used to adulterate 

 butter.' About Bombay, it is called kokum, and the fruit is eaten, and oil is obtained 

 from the seeds. It is called bruidas by the Portuguese at Goa, where coctun oil is used 

 for adulterating ghee or butter.^ 



G. lanceaefolia Roxb. 



Himalayas. The plant yields an edible fruit in India.' 



G. livingstonei T. Anders. African mongosteen. 



Tropical Africa. It is grown as a fruit tree in the PubUc Gardens of Jamaica.* 



G. mangostana Linn, mongosteen. 



A fruit of the equatorial portion of the Malayan Archipelago and considered by many 

 the most delicious of all fruits. Capt. Cook, in 1770, found it at Batavia and says " it 

 is about the size of a crab apple and of a deep red wine-color; on the top of it are the 

 figiu^s of five or six small triangles found in a circle and at the bottom several hollow, 

 green leaves, which are remains of the blossom. 'UTien they are to be eaten, the skin, 

 or rather flesh, must be taken off, under which are found six or seven white kernels placed 

 in a circtdar order and the pulp with which these are enveloped is the fruit, than which 

 nothing can be more delicious: it is a happy mixture of the tart and the sweet, which is 

 no less wholesome than pleasant." Bayard Taylor ' says " beautiful to sight, smell and 

 taste, it hangs among its glossy leaves, the prince of fruits. Cut through the shaded 

 green and purple cf the rind, and lift the upper half as if it were the cover of a dish, and 

 the pxilp of half-transparent, creamy whiteness stands in segments like an orange, but 

 rimmed with darkest crimson where the rind was cut. It looks too beautiful to eat; but 

 how the rarest, sweetest essence of the tropics seems to dwell in it as it melts to your 

 delighted taste." The tree was fruited in English greenhouses in 1855. It is cultivated 

 in the southern and eastern parts of India but does not there attain the same perfection 

 as it does in the Malay Archipelago.* Neither does it do well in the West Indies,' but 

 Morris ' says it is cultivated for its fruit in the Public Gardens of Jamaica. In Burma, 

 it is called men-gu.^ 



G. morella Desr. gamboge. 



East Indies and Malay; a small tree common in Siam and Cambodia. The fruit 

 is a pulpy drupe, about two inches in diameter, of a yellow color and is esteemed as a des- 



' Fliickiger and Hanbury Pkarm. 86. 1879. 



2 Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 4S3. 1879. 



Royle, J. F. Illustr. Bol. Himal. 1:133. 1839. 



* Morris Rpt. Pub. Gard. Jam. 35. 1880. 



' Taylor, B. Siam 268. 1892. 



Black, A. A. Treai. Bo<. 1:519. 1870. 



' Unger, F. U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 339. 1859. 



' Morris Rpt. Pub. Gard. Jam. 35. 1880. 



Pickering, C. Ckron. Hist. Pis. 642. 1879. 



