HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



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posed. The decussate pairs of thick, leathery sepals, 

 and the closely-appressed stigmas can be readily seen 

 on looking at a good mangosteen. 



When the upper half of the rind is taken off the 

 fruit, a sight of beauty meets the eyes, and, after the 

 first experience of the taste of this delicious fruit, 

 makes the mouth water. A deeply-sectioned pulp of 

 dazzling whiteness lies in its dark-brown cup, inside 

 the margin of which there is usually a layer of deep 

 golden gamboge. The pulp is more deeply lobed 

 exteriorly than in the orange, the number of lobes 

 varying between five and eight. It is a favourite 

 trick of Europeans in the East to ask new-comers to 

 guess how many sections of white pulp there will be 

 when the fruit is opened. As the number is indicated 

 by the flattened stigmas outside, any one with a mere 

 smattering of botanical knowledge has no hesitation 

 in stating a number which is always correct, much to 

 ■the amazement of the uninitiated. No words can do 

 justice to the exquisite flavour of this rich glutinous 

 pulp. The fruit is perfectly harmless, and any 

 quantity can be consumed at tiffin with impunity. 

 Europeans always bar fruit after mid-day, thinking 

 it unsafe. 



The gamboge of the mangosteen is found in other 

 members of the same family in such abundance that 

 this product gives the name to the whole order — 

 Gulliferas. The mangosteen, Garcinia ma?igostana, 

 so named after the traveller Dr. Garcin, does not 

 yield enough of the pigment to make it worth 

 extracting, but Garcinia morella is the source of the 

 cake-gamboge or camboge of Siam, the best in the 

 world. To obtain the pigment the leaves and young 

 twigs of suitable trees are crushed, and the resinous 

 gum collected in much the same way as it is now 

 proposed to obtain gutta percha from Isonandra 

 dychopsis. Gamboge is chiefly valuable commercially 

 as a pigment, but it is also employed medicinally for 

 its purgative properties. It is curious that the 

 mangosteen also contains an astringent medicine in 

 the tannin of the leathery-looking rind, which is 

 used in cases of dysentery and as a gargle in throat 

 disorders. The tree on which the mangosteen grows 

 has beautiful glossy leaves like those of the citron- 

 tree, and is altogether so highly ornamental that it is 

 cultivated in the Batavia gardens for its appearance 

 as much as its fruit. Efforts to naturalise the 

 mangosteen in India have hitherto failed, and there 

 seems little hope of this trophy of the Moluccas ever 

 becoming widely known. 



(3.) The little-known Rambutans mentioned by 

 "Wallace in his remarkable list of the fruits found 

 in Borneo are small burr-like fruits. The Litchi 

 and Lougan are delicious fruits of the same family 

 (Sapindacere) well-known in India, but I cannot 

 ascertain that the rambutan is naturalised further 

 west than the Malay Peninsula. The Siamese 

 name of this little fruit is as repellent as its 

 horny exterior; the syllable "ngau" most nearly 



represents the sound, but a European need never 

 hope to master these unutterable nasals. When the 

 rough coat is removed, the small round fruit looks 

 like an egg whose albumen is stiffened but not made 

 opaque in the stiffening, perhaps the semi-transparent 

 white of raw onion laminae most nearly resembles the 

 rambutan in colour and consistence. In the centre 

 of the pulp is one large stone which the Siamese 

 scoop out at one end with a kind of tweezers, leaving 

 the cylinder of edible fruit unbroken. The flavour 

 is sweet and pleasant, and the abundant juice very 

 refreshing. 



(4.) The huge Jack-fruit is so well known in 

 India and so far inferior as a fruit to the others 

 in the group that scant notice may suffice. The 

 enormous size of the fruit is the result of the 

 coalescence of many pistillate flowers — perianths, 

 carpels, and receptacles all being absorbed and 

 swollen out of recognition, and finally forming a 

 mass weighing as much as sixty pounds. When one 

 small ,tree is laden with three or four of these great 

 yellow spine-covered masses, one is forced to marvel 

 although one can't admire. The jack-fruit is not a 

 thing of beauty, and its flavour, like that of "mashed 

 potatoes," is far inferior to the flavour of the bread- 

 fruit of the Oceanic Islands far east. It is curious 

 that the bread-fruit {Artocarpus incisa), and the jack- 

 fruit (Artocarpis integrifolia), both edible and highly 

 nutritive, should belong to the same order 

 (Artocarpaceae) as the deadly upas-tree of Java, whose 

 resinous juice is a virulent poison. 



Although the jack is rather a failure as a fruit, it 

 is good enough as a vegetable, and makes capital 

 fritters and puddings. The still more valuable 

 bread-fruit may yet be transplanted to the West 

 Indies — unfortunately the seeds become abortive by 

 cultivation — and there grown, as Wallace suggests, 

 for the Covent Garden Market. 



(5.) The Shaddock, otherwise the Pompelmousse 

 or Pommelo, is only an orange of larger bulk and less 

 regular shape. South-eastern Asia was the ancestral 

 home of all the oranges, and yet boasts of a greater 

 variety of these beautiful, glossy-leaved, golden- 

 fruited trees than any other part of the world. 

 Here in this fruit-garden are orange-trees of many 

 kinds, from the pretty garden shrub whose pinnate 

 leaves are of that vivid green young Siamese dandies 

 affect for their panungs, and whose lovely white 

 flowers are provokingly frail, to great trees only 

 slightly inferior in height to the graceful areca 

 palm. 



In colour both of rind and pulp the Shaddock 

 resembles the lemon rather than the common orange ; 

 and its flavour is too sweet to be as pleasing to 

 European taste as the refreshing acidity of the 

 oranges of Southern Europe. With judicious grafting 

 and cultivation much improvement might be effected, 

 and the Shaddock might yet become a right royal 

 fruit worthy to be the durian's " Queen." 



