238 



Remarks on the Gamboge Tree of Ceylon. 



[July 



but at the same time most earnestly, to recommend to His Royal High- 

 ness the President, and to the Council, that such a representation be 

 made to the Government, in order that means may be ensured for the 

 establishment, in the first instance, of magnetical observatories in those 

 places which, from local or other causes, afford the greatest facilities 

 for the early commencement of these observations.*— Edinburgh New 

 Philosophical Journal, April — July 1837, page 316 — 330. 



S. Hunter Christie. 

 9th Jane 1836. G. B. Airy. 



4. — Remarks on the Gamboge Tree of Ceylon, and Character of 

 Hebradendron, a new Genus of Guttiferce, and that to ivhich the' 

 Tree belongs. — By Robert Graham, m. d., Professor of Botany in 

 the TJnimrsity of Edinburgh. f 



There are, in tropical countries, many plants which yield a yellow 

 juice, so nearly resembling Gamboge in external characters, and it is 

 said, even in medical properties, that they have each obtained in their 

 respective countries, the name of Gamboge Plant. These belong to 

 exceedingly dissimilar families, their products are never exported from 

 the countries in which they grow, and they are therefore known not to 

 yield any part of the Gamboge of commerce. It has been much doubt- 

 ed, however, whether this is the produce of one plant only, and those 

 Botanists who believe that it is so, differ in opinion as to what thaS 

 plant is. 



Modern Naturalists think this substance is obtained from a plant be- 

 longing to the Natural Family of Guttiferce, and they generally differ 

 only in believing, either with Murray, that this plant is Stalagmitis 

 cambogioides ; or, with De Candolle, that it is Garcinia Cambogia (See 

 JEssai suv les Proprietes Medicales des Plantes, p. 105). Murray's opi- 

 nions were founded upon certain MSS. by Konig, and the examination 

 of a specimen collected by him, both of which were in the possession 

 of Sir Joseph Banks, by whose liberality he was allowed to publish his 

 observations, which appeared in 1739, in the ninth volume of the Com- 

 mentationes Socielatis Regia? Scientiarum Gottihgensis. 



The Authors of the British and several of the Continental Pharma- 



* We have not introduced the Baron de Humboldt's letter to the President of the Royal 

 Society, because our space will not admit of it ; moreover, the Report of M. M. Christie 

 and Airy, together with their own admirable observations, gives a conveniently con- 

 densed abstract of it, which renders such a step unnecessary.— Editor Madras Journal. 



+ It will be observed by our J 4th Number, p. 300, that Dr. Wight has been simultane- 

 ously occupied in the examination of this subject, and, in a paper published anteriorly 

 to Dr. Graham's, has proposed a name for the plant yielding the Gamboge more unexcep- 

 tionable, in our opinion, than Hebradendron.— Editor Madras Journal. 



