20 
ON THE GAMBOGE TREE OF CEYLON. 
too hasty ; and my belief was founded on the examination of 
flowering specimens and drawings, with observations made in 
Ceylon, most obligingly communicated to me by Mrs. Col. 
Walker, and on the examination of a specimen in fruit trans- 
mitted by Mr. Blair to the late Dr. Duncan, now in the Ma- 
teria Medica Museum of this University. 
All the Gamboge of commerce is exported, as it appears, 
from Singapoor, 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 gathered; for Murray informs us 
that all his information in Siam was derived 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 descrip- 
tion {descriptio proletaria) of his informant by procuring a 
single twig. Out of these materials, however, — viz., the said 
description, the observations of Konig made in Ceylon, and 
portions of a specimen in the Banksian Herbarium, transmit- 
ted from thence by Konig, — does Murray construct the cha- 
racter of his genus Stalagmitis, and define his species cam- 
bogioides. Murray's description is, in some respects, wholly 
at variance with the only tree which, in Ceylon, yields a mat 
ter 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 ob- 
tained. Indeed, we have another authority than that of Mur- 
ray for this belief; Konig himself gives his plant the Singha- 
lese names of Gkokkatu, Gohathu, 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.* 
* 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 presently quote again, he writes, " Stalagmi- 
tis 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 specimens ; and 
these specimens, as well as the descriptions, belong to the plant of Celyon." 
