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Remarks on the Gamboge Tree of Ceylon. 



[July 



the kindness with which Mr. Brown attended to my request that he 

 would examine the specimens of Konig in the Banksian Herbarium. 

 This examination has reconciled most of the contradictions of authors 

 in a way which could hardly have been anticipated ; the authoritative 

 specimen of Konig is a compound, and consists of the flowers of 

 Xanthochymus ovalifolius, with what seems the branch* leaves, and 

 fruit of the plant which in Ceylon yields Gamboge. T give authority 

 to this statement by quoting the letter of Mr. Brown. " The plant 

 sent pasted by Konig to Sir Joseph Banks, as one specimen, I have 

 ascertained to be made up of two plants, and very probably of two ge- 

 nera. The union was concealed by sealing wax. The portion in 

 flower, and which agrees in structure with Murray's account, is, I have 

 no doubt, the Xanthoehymus ovalifolius of Roxburgh. Stalagmitis and 

 Xanthochymus are therefore one genus, as Cambessedes has already 

 observed, giving the preference to the earlier name of Murray. This, 

 however, forms but a small part of the whole specimen, the larger por- 

 tion being, I am inclined to think, the same with your plant, of which I 

 have seen, and I believe still possess, the specimen you sent to Don.* 

 The structure, however, of this greater portion cannot be ascertained 

 from the few very young flower-buds belonging to it. It approaches also 

 very closely, in its leaves especially, to that specimen in Hermann's 

 Herbarium, which may be considered as the type of Linnaeus' Cambogia 

 Gutta. A loose fruit, pasted on the sheet with Kouig's plant, probably 

 belongs to the larger portion, and resembles Gaertner's Morella." 



It appears then that the generic name of Xanthochymus must be 

 dropped, and that the species which belonged to this genus must re- 

 ceive the appellation of Stalagmitis. It seems too, that the generic 

 character of Stalagmitis by Murray, so far as regards the flower and 

 inflorescence, was not taken from the plant he meant to describe, but 

 from the flowers of Xanthochymus {Stalagmitis) ovalifolius, which 

 Konig had inadvertently fastened to it ; and lastly, that it is not known 

 that any specimens of the flowers of the plant which Murray meant to 

 describe, at least not any sufficiently perfect for examination, had been 

 received in Europe, till those arrived which I owe to Mrs. Walker. 

 The examination of these, proves that the plant is no Stalagmitis. It 

 differs wholly in the number of the parts of the flower and cells of the 

 fruit, in the structure of the calyx, corolla, and stamens ; in the ab- 

 sence of intervening glands between the stamens, in the structure 

 of the leaves, in the appearance of the fruit, and in the structure of 

 the persistent stigma. "While I remain quite certain that this plant is 

 the Garcinia Morella of Gartner, an opinion which was first formed 

 from an inspection of the specimen in fruit from Mr. Blair, the exa- 

 mination of Mrs. Walker's specimens has induced me to remove the 

 plant from the genus Garcinia. The structure of the stamens is quite 



* One of those received from Mrs, Walker, 



