632 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1734. 



7/^ Character. — This genus has its flower complete, tetrapetalous, regular, 

 hermaphrodite, containing the ovary. Its calix is monopetalous, divided into 

 4 lobes, roundish on the edges, and hollowed in the shape of a spoon. The 

 ovary is nearly cylindrical, with a tube on it, cut out in the shape of a rose, 

 which covers it like a little cap. The stamina which surround it, are spherical 

 at the top, and their number is four times that of the petala. When these are 

 gone off, the pistil changes into a round fruit, adorned with its calix, and its 

 tube, cut into the shape of a star with rays squared at the corners. Its cortex, 

 which is thick and brittle, encloses a cavity, filled with as many pulpous and 

 juicy segments, as there are rays in the tube. Tliese segments are white, in 

 the shape of a half-moon, sticking together, and containing each but one grain 

 of seed ; which latter is oblong, something flattened, resembling an almond, 

 wrapped up in a tunica, which is covered with a hairy coat of fibres or vessels, 

 which together with the pulp make up the parenchyma of a segment of the 

 fruit. The leaves of the tree are entire, smooth like those of the laurel, and 

 grow opposite to each other on the branches. The stem of the tree grows up 

 straight to the top of its tuft, and its branches and twigs come out opposite to 

 each other like the leaves. 



Dr. G. mentions only one species of this genus, which admits indeed of some 

 variation, but without any other mark than what appears in the fruit. 



Mangostans garciae, Clus. Bont. arbor peregriua aurantio simili fructu. Clus. 

 exot. 12. Laurifolia javanensis C. B. Pin. 46l. 



Its Description. — ^The mangostans is a tree of a very moderate size, rising to 

 about 18 feet high. Its stem runs up straight to the top of its tuft, like the 

 fir. This tuft is regular, in form of an oblong cone, composed of many 

 branches and twigs, spreading out equally on all sides, without leaving any 

 hollow. 



The stem grows at bottom to the thickness of a man's thigh, or about 8 or 

 10 inches in diameter ; it afterwards diminishes in thickness by degrees up to 

 the tuft. Its wood is white, as long as the tree is growing, but brownish when 

 the tree is cut down and dry. Its bark is a little tender, and separates easily 

 from the wood ; it is of a dark grey colour, and slit, or full of cracks up the 

 stem, but on the twigs it is more even, and greener, resembling that of 

 evonymus, or spindle-trce. 



The branches grow out of them by stories, and opposite to each other; those 

 stories cross each other obliquely, and not at right angles. The thickness of 

 those branches is always proportionable to that of the stem at the place where 

 they come out of it : this proportion is about 1 to 4, or 1 to 5. The length of 

 the inferior branches of the tuft is 5 or 6 feet, the others shorten as they come 



