﻿24 SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED. 



43446. Garctnia mangostana L. Clusiacese. Mangosteen. 



From Dominica, British West Indies. Secured through Mr. Joseph Jones, 

 curator, Botanic Gardens. Received October 24, 1916. 

 " This delicious fruit is about the size of a mandarin orange, round and 

 slightly flattened at each end, with a smooth, thick rind, rich red-purple in 

 color, with here and there a bright hardened drop of the yellow juice, which 

 marks some injury to the rind when it was young. As these mangosteens are 

 sold in the Dutch East Indies, heaped up on fruit baskets or made up into long, 

 regular bunches with thin strips of braided bamboo, they are as strikingly 

 handsome as anything of the kind could well be, but it is only when the fruit 

 is opened that its real beauty is seen. The rind is thick and tough, and in 

 order to get at the pulp inside it requires a circular cut with a sharp knife to 

 lift the top off like a cap, exposing the white segments, five, six, or seven in 

 number, lying loose in the cup. The cut surface of the rind is of a most 

 delicate pink color and is studded with small yellow points formed by the 

 drops of exuding juice. As you lift out of this cup, one by one, the delicate 

 segments, which are the size and shape of those of a mandarin orange, the 

 light pink sides of the cup and the veins of white and yellow embedded in it 

 are visible. The separate segments are between snow white and ivory in 

 color and are covered with a delicate network of fibers, and the side of each 

 segment where it presses against its neighbor is translucent and slightly tinged 

 with pale green. As one poises the dainty bit of snowy fruit on his fork and 

 looks at the empty pink cup from which it has been taken, he hardly knows 

 whether the delicate flavor or the beautiful coloring of the fruit pleases him 

 the more, and he invariably stops to admire the rapidly deepening color of the 

 cut rind as it changes on exposure to the air from light pink to deep brown. 

 The texture of the mangosteen pulp much resembles that of a well-ripened plum, 

 only it is so delicate that it melts in one's mouth like a bit of ice cream. The 

 flavor is quite indescribably delicious and resembles nothing you know of and 

 yet reminds you, with a long aftertaste, of all sorts of creams and ices. There 

 is nothing to mar the perfection of this fruit, unless it be that the juice from 

 the rind forms an indelible stain on a white napkin. Even the seeds are 

 partly or wholly lacking, and when present are so thin and small that they are 

 really no trouble to get rid of. Where cheap and abundant, as in Java, one 

 eats these fruits by the half peck and is never tired of them ; they produce no 

 feeling of satiety, such as the banana and the mango do, for there is little 

 substance to the delicate pulp." (Fairchild.) 



43447 to 43449. 



From El Coyolar, Costa Rica. Seeds presented by Mr. Carlos Werckle. 

 Received October 20, 1916. 

 43447. Annona mtjbicata L. Annonacese. Soursop. 



" Ouanabana. From a good-sized fruit with only 17 seeds ; a very good 

 variety." ( Werckle. ) 



" One of the most valuable fruit trees of the Tropics. It is grown with 

 especial excellence in Porto Rico and is common in the markets of Key 

 West, whither it is shipped from the islands to the southward. A favorite 

 drink is made from the juice, and the pulp yields excellent jelly, tarts, and 

 preserves." (W. E. Safford.) 



For further description, see Bailey, Standard Cyclopedia of Horticul- 

 ture, vol. 1, p. 292. 



