THE BALSAM-TREE FAMILY 



CLUSIACE^ Lindley 



LUSIACEiE comprise some 12 genera with about 125 species of trees 

 or shrubs with yellowish, milky sap, natives of the warmer portions 

 of both hemispheres. They are of considerable local economic im- 

 portance, the concrete milky juice of many being used both medici- 

 nally and mechanically; of the former, Gamboge, a gum resin obtained from 

 Garcinia Hanhuryi J. D. Hooker, is powerfully purgative and poisonous in over- 

 doses; it is also used as a yellow coloring and is official in all modem Pharma- 

 copoeias; others are used externally for healing purposes, and as we would use 

 pitch in boat-building. Several edible fruits, the finest of them, and claimed by 

 many to be the most deHcious of all known fruits, is the Mangosteen, the fruit of 

 Garcinia Mangosiana Linneeus, of the East Indies, where it is largely cultivated 

 in many improved varieties. In tropical America the Mammee apple, the large 

 fruit of Mammea americana Linnaeus, is much used. 



The ClusiacecE have opposite, sometimes whorled, entire leaves. The flov/ers 

 are mostly dioecious or polygamous in few-fiowered cymes, or soHtar)'. The calyx 

 consists of 2 to 16 strongly imbricated sepals, usually thick, leathery and persist- 

 ent; the corolla is large, white, pink or yellow, of 4 to 9 petals; the stamens are 

 mostly numerous, sometimes reduced in the pistillate flowers, their filaments more 

 or less united; the pistils consist of 2 to many united carpels; ovary 2- to many- 

 celled, its base surrounded by the united filaments; styles very stout or none; 

 stigmas thick; ovules several to many. The fruit is drupaceous or capsular, the 

 seeds sometimes arillate; endosperm none. 



One species belonging to this family has been found in our area, or perhaps two. 



BALSAM TREE 



GENUS CLUSIA [PLUMIER] LINN^US 

 Species Clusia flava Jacquin 



HIS evergreen tree or shrub is also called Bull Bay; it is an epiphyte, 

 germinating on the trunk or branches of other trees and sending down 

 aerial roots, which, upon reaching the soil, enter and finally become 

 the trunk. It has a thick, yellow, milky sap, and is reported to have 

 grown on Key West many years ago; it extends southward through the West 

 Indies to tropical America, and is also called Monkey apple and Fat pork. Its 



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