1837.] 



Remarks on the Gamboge Tree of Ceylon. 



237 



copeias, have adopted Murray's opinions ; but in a paper, read to the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, March, 1836, I stated my belief that this 

 acquiescence had been somewhat too hasty ; and my belief was founded 

 on the examination of flowering specimens and drawings, with observa- 

 tions made in Ceylon, most obligingly communicated to me by Mrs. 

 Col. Walker, and on the examination of a specimen in fruit transmitted 

 by Mr. Blair to the late Dr. Duncan, now in the Materia Medica Muse- 

 um of this University. 



All the Gamboge of Commerce is exported, as it appears, from Singa- 

 pore, and believed to be obtained from Siam. The observations of 

 Konig were made in Ceylon, and during a short stay in Siam,— but 

 chiefly at the former place, where his specimens must have been ga- 

 thered ; for Murray informs us that all his information in Siam was de- 

 rived from a Roman Catholic Priest, who gave him a very imperfect 

 description of the tree, and that Konig himself had never seen it alive, 

 and had not even an opportunity of verifying the meagre description 

 (descriptio proletaria) of his informant by procuring a single twig. 

 Out of these materials, however, — viz., the said description, the obser- 

 vations of Konig made in Ceylon, and portions of a specimen in the 

 Banksian Herbarium, transmitted from thence by Konig, — does Murray 

 construct the character of his genus Stalagmitis, and define his species 

 cambogioides. Murray's description is, in some respects, wholly at 

 variance with the only tree which, in Ceylon, yields a matter having 

 all the properties, and answering all the purposes of Gamboge ; yet in 

 Ceylon, as I have said (I presume from Murray's testimony), Konig's 

 specimens must have been obtained. Indeed we have another authori- 

 ty than that of Murray for this belief ; Konig himself gives his plant 

 the Singhalese names of Ghokkatu, Gokathu, or Ghotathu, and Kanna 

 Ghoraka, yet there is nothing so easy as to show that the description of 

 Stalagmitis by Murray is inapplicable to this plant.* 



The specimens which I possess of the Ceylon tree and its product, 

 and the characteristic drawings with which these are accompanied, 

 together with the information I have obtained regarding it, I owe en- 

 tirely to the great kindness of my most intelligent correspondent, Mrs. 

 Col. Walker; who, conjointly with her husband, is profiting with equal 

 zeal, judgment, and success, by the ample opportunities which they en- 

 joy of cultivating an acquaintance with the Botany of that rich and in- 

 teresting island, Ceylon. It will give value and authority to these 

 observations, if I make some extracts from Mrs. Walker's letters, in 

 which the tree, in conformity with previously received opinion, is 



* These observations regarding the origin of Konig's specimens, were written before I 

 had the direct testimony of Mr. Brown. In a letter, dated Aug. 3, 1836, which I shall pre- 

 sently quote again, he writes, " Stalagmitis of Murray, as you well know, is entirely 

 formed from Konig's MSS.,and a portion of his specimens or rather of one of his speci- 

 mens, and these specimens, as well as the descriptions, belong to the plant, of Ceylon." 



