332 BOTANICAL ORIGIN OF GAMBOGE. 



1864* 



ON THE BOTANICAL ORIGIN OF GAMBOGE. 

 [Summary^ 



(Read before the Pharmaceutical Society, t)ec. 7, 1864.) 

 (Gfarcinia Morella. Stammpflanze des Gutti-Gummiharzes.) 



THE botanical origin of gamboge has been long involved in 

 some obscurity ; for although the drug was evidently produced 

 by a plant of the genus Garcinia, it has not until recently 

 been possible, for want of good specimens, to determine the 

 species. 



Exportation. Hermann, a Dutch naturalist of the seventeenth century, who 

 resided in Ceylon, referred the origin of gamboge to two plants, 

 one of which is known to modern botanists as Garcinia Morella, 

 the other as G. Cambogia ; and we have it on the authority of 

 Mr. Thwaites, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens of Pera- 

 denia, that the former is capable of affording a very good form 

 of the drug, but that such is not the case with the latter, It is, 

 however, well known that gamboge is not an export of Ceylon, 

 but that it is a production of Siam, a country which is still 

 nearly unexplored by the botanist. Whether gamboge in Siam 

 was yielded by the same tree as that which affords it in Ceylon, 

 was a question which could only be settled by a careful examina- 

 tion of good botanical specimens. 



Some years ago Dr. Christison, of Edinburgh, received from 

 Singapore specimens of a Garcinia cultivated there on the estate 

 of Messrs. D'Almeida and Sons, which Garcinia had been 

 brought from Siam as the true gamboge-tree. Dr. Christison, 

 whose account appeared in the Pharmaceutical Journal for 

 November, 1850, found this plant to be nearly allied to the 

 G. elliptica of Wallich, but to differ from that species in having 

 male flowers pedicellate, instead of sessile. Desirous of carrying 

 the inquiry a little further, and of attempting to set at rest the 

 question of the origin of gamboge, I recently addressed myself 

 to Messrs. D'Almeida who promptly replied to my letter, and 

 forwarded a jar containing numerous specimens of the gamboge- 



