GAREINIA MANGOSTANA. 775 
means never return, but have been brought out dead by such of the 
criminals as have themselves escaped death. 
But all these accounts, and many other anecdotes reported by 
Foersch, are denied by Lambert Nolst, M. D, fellow of the Batavian 
Experimental Society at Rotterdam ; who says, that the assertions 
and pretended facts of Foersch have no collateral evidence ; and 
every thing which we gather from the account of others, or from the 
history of the people, invalidates them. For these and other reasons 
Dr. Nolst concludes that very little credit is due to the representa- 
tions of Foersch, and that the island of Java produces no such tree, 
which, if it really grew there, would be the most remarkable of all 
trees.” — Gent. Mag. 1794, p. 433. 
Gareinia Mangostana. 
This is the name of a tree of great elegance, and producing the 
most pleasant fruit of any yet known. This tree has been very 
accurately described by Dr. Garein, in honour of whom Linnaeus gave 
it the name, in the 36th volume of the Phil. Trans. It grows, he informs 
us, to seventeen or eighteen feet high, with a straight taper stem like a 
fir, having a regular tuft, in form of an oblong cone, composed of 
many branches and twigs, spreading out equally on all sides, without 
leaving any hollow. Its leaves are oblong, pointed at both ends, 
entire, smooth, of a shining green on the upper side, and of an olive 
on the back. Its flower is composed of four petals almost round, or 
a little pointed like that of a rose, only deeper and less lively. The 
calyx of this flower is of one piece, expanded, and cut into four lobes : 
the two upper ones are something larger than the lower ones ; they 
are greenish on the outside, and of a fine deep red within ; the red 
of the upper ones is more lively than that of the lower ones. This 
calyx encloses all the parts of the flower; it is supported by a pedi- 
cle, which is green, and constantly comes out at the end of a twig 
above the last pair of leaves. 
The fruit is round, of the size of a small orange, from an inch and 
a half to two inches diameter. The body of this fruit is a capsule of 
one cavity, composed of a thick rind, a little like that of a pomegra- 
nate, but softer, thicker, and fuller of juice. Its thickness is com- 
monly of a quarter of an inch. Its outer colour is a dark brown 
purple, mixed with a little gray and dark green. The inside of the 
peel is a rose-colour, and its juice is a purple : this skin is of a 
styptic or astringent taste, like that of a pomegranate, nor does it 
stick to the fruit it contains. The inside of this fruit is a furrowed 
globe, divided into segments like those of an orange, but equal in 
size, and not adhering to each other. The number of these segments 
is always equal to that of the rays of the top which covers the fruit. 
The fewer there are of these segments, the bigger they are ; there are 
often, in the same fruit, segments as big again as any of those that are 
on the side of them. These segments are white, a little transparent, 
fleshy-, membranous, full of juice like cherries or raspberries, and of 
the taste of strawberries and grapes together. Each of the segments 
encloses a seed of the figure and size of an almond stripped of its shell, 
Laving a protuberance on one of its sides. These seeds are covered 
