mm 



on the Gamboge Tree. 



469 



add, that Dr. Wight thinks that if my plant shall prove to be the 

 Mangostana Morella of Gsertner, it will go far to establish the fact of 

 its being a native of Ceylon. Now, my opinion as to the identity of 

 these plants is founded upon the excellent figure of the fruit by Gfert- 

 ner, and a careful examination of synonyms by authors who were in 

 situations which enabled them to judge. With respect to the fact of 

 the plant being a native of Ceylon or not, however, I long since wrote 

 to Dr. Wight, requesting he would make inquiry, and knowing his ac- 

 tivity, and confident in his accuracy and judgment, I shall at once adopt 

 the opinion which he shall form after inquiry. I shall be surprised if 

 he finds it as scarce as he states it to be, in his observations in the Ma- 

 dras Journal ; because Mrs. Walker informs me, that, after knowing 

 it in one situation, she passed through "a forest" of it in another. 

 This expression, however, may not have been intended to be under- 

 stood literally, and the two situations, for any thing I know to the 

 contrary, may not be far distant. No man is more able to inquire into 

 this than Dr. Wight, and therefore I am confident we shall know the 

 fact before long*. Borneo, Singapoor, and Rangoon, all yield gam- 

 boge, and so do probably many other places in the east, as well as 

 Siam. Let us hope that we shall soon get information as to the plant 

 in each which aflfords it. Mr. Malcolmson has obligingly lately given 

 me a specimen, unfortunately only in leaf, from Rangoon, which he 

 found to contain a purgative, yellow gamboge-like juice in its fruit. It 

 is certainly different from my Ceylon specimens. 



When Dr. Wight's observations in the Madras Journal were written, 

 he had not heard the discovery which Mr. Brown's inquiries, kindly 

 undertaken at my request, had led to,— that the specimen from which 

 Murray's description of Stalagmitis gamhogioides was taken, is a com- 

 pound, the flowers of Xanthochymus being stuck by sealing-wax upon 

 a branch of what seems my Ceylon plant. The knowledge of this 

 circumstance would have probably modified the observations in the 

 latter part of Dr. Wight's ^'Apev.— Edinburgh New Philosophical 

 Journal, No. 47, October l^Zl— January 1838, pjo. 109—111, 



The foregoing remarks were written in June last, with a view to 

 their insertion in the then forthcoming Number of this Journal. I 

 am glad that there has not been room for them in an earlier Number 

 than the present, because I have since received additional, and what 

 seems satisfactory information regarding the claim of Hebradendron 

 gambogioides to be considered a native of Ceylon. In a letter which 



* See additional iuformatiou on this subject in Scientific Intelligence, Botany, 



