There were fruiting trees in greenhouses in England in 1855. It is rare in Queensland, where it has been tried many times since 1854, and poorly represented in tropical Africa (Zanzibar, Ghana, Gabon and Liberia). The tree is fairly common only in the provinces of Mindanao and Sulu (or Jolo) in the Philippines. There it succeeds in 4 limited areasthe Nilgiri Hills, the Tinnevelly district of southern Madras, the Kanya-kumani district at the southernmost tip of the Madras peninsula, and in Kerala State in southwestern India. The tree was planted in Ceylon about 1800 and in India in 1881. It is much cultivated in Thailandwhere there were 9,700 acres (4,000 ha) in 1965also in Kampuchea, southern Vietnam and Burma, throughout Malaya and Singapore. Corner suggests that the tree may have been first domesticated in Thailand, or Burma. The place of origin of the mangosteen is unknown but is believed to be the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas still, there are wild trees in the forests of Kemaman, Malaya. The flesh is slightly acid and mild to distinctly acid in flavor and is acclaimed as exquisitely luscious and delicious. The fruit may be seedless or have 1 to 5 fully developed seeds, ovoid-oblong, somewhat flattened, 1 in (2.5 cm) long and 5/8 in (1.6 cm) wide, that cling to the flesh. There are 4 to 8 triangular segments of snow-white, juicy, soft flesh (actually the arils of the seeds). It contains bitter yellow latex and a purple, staining juice. The rind is 1/4 to 3/8 in (6-10 mm) thick, red in cross-section, purplish-white on the inside. The fruit, capped by the prominent calyx at the stem end and with 4 to 8 triangular, flat remnants of the stigma in a rosette at the apex, is round, dark-purple to red-purple and smooth externally 1 1/3 to 3 in (3.4-7.5 cm) in diameter. The hermaphrodite are borne singly or in pairs at the tips of young branchlets their petals may be yellowish-green edged with red or mostly red, and are quickly shed. The former are in clusters of 3-9 at the branch tips there are 4 sepals and 4 ovate, thick, fleshy petals, green with red spots on the outside, yellowish-red inside, and many stamens though the aborted anthers bear no pollen. Flowers, 1 1/2 to 2 in (4-5 cm) wide and fleshy, may be male or hermaphrodite on the same tree. The evergreen, opposite, short-stalked leaves are ovate-oblong or elliptic, leathery and thick, dark-green, slightly glossy above, yellowish-green and dull beneath 3 1/2 to 10 in (9-25 cm) long, 1 3/4 to 4 in (4.5-10 cm) wide, with conspicuous, pale midrib. The mangosteen tree is very slow-growing, erect, with a pyramidal crown attains 20 to 82 ft (6-25 m) in height, has dark-brown or nearly black, flaking bark, the inner bark containing much yellow, gummy, bitter latex. Plate XLI: MANGOSTEEN, Garcinia mangostanaPainted by Dr. Throughout the Malay Archipelago, there are many different spellings of names similar to most of the above. There are numerous variations in nomenclature: among Spanish-speaking people, it is called mangostan to the French, it is mangostanier, mangoustanier, mangouste or mangostier in Portuguese, it is mangostao, mangosta or mangusta in Dutch, it is manggis or manggistan in Vietnamese, mang cut in Malaya, it may be referred to in any of these languages or by the local terms, mesetor, semetah, or sementah in the Philippines, it is mangis or mangostan. One of the most praised of tropical fruits, and certainly the most esteemed fruit in the family Guttiferae, the mangosteen, Garcinia mangostana L., is almost universally known or heard of by this name. Mangosteen Index | Search | Home | Morton
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