part 10

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[338] _Bot. Zeitung_, 14th Nov. 1856. 797

GUTTIFERÆ.

=CAMBOGIA.=

_Gummi Gambogia_, _Gummi Gutti_; _Gamboge_; F. _Gomme Gutte_; _G. Gutti_, _Gummigutt_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Garcinia Morella_ Desrousseaux, var. β. _pedicellata_, a diœcious tree,[339] with handsome laurel-like foliage and small yellow flowers, found in Camboja, Siam (province of Chantibun and the islands on the east coast of the gulf of Siam), and in the southern parts of Cochin China. It was introduced about thirty years ago into Singapore where several specimens are still thriving (1873) on the estate of Dr. Jamie. The finest is now a tree of 20 feet high, with a trunk a foot in diameter, and a thick, spreading head of foliage.

_G. Morella_ Desr.—The typical form of this tree having _sessile_ male flowers grows in moist forests of Southern India and Ceylon, and is capable of affording good gamboge.

_G. pictoria_ Roxb., a large tree of Southern India, produces a sort of gamboge found by Christian (1846) essentially the same as that of Siam. It has been examined more recently by Broughton (1871) who states it to be quite equal to that of _G. Morella_. We have also been unable to find any difference between the product of _G. pictoria_ as sent from Ceylon and common gamboge. _Garcinia pictoria_ moreover is thought by Sir Jos. Hooker to agree with _G. Morella_.

=History=—The Chinese had intercourse with Camboja as early as the time of the Sung dynasty (A.D. 970-1127); and a Chinese traveller who visited the latter country in 1295-97, describes gamboge and the method of obtaining it by incisions in the stem of the tree.[340] The celebrated Chinese herbal _Pun-tsao_, written towards the close of the 16th century, mentions gamboge (_Tang-hwang_) and gives a rude figure of the tree. The drug is regarded by the Chinese as poisonous, and is scarcely employed except as a pigment.

The first notice of the occurrence of gamboge in Europe is in the writings of Clusius[341] who describes a specimen brought from China by the Dutch Admiral, Jacob van Neck, and given to him in 1603, under the name of _Ghittaiemou_.[342] It appears that shortly after this time it began to be employed in medicine in Europe, for in 1611, Michael Reuden, a physician of Bamberg, made use of it as he stated in 1613.[343] He termed the drug a “novum gummi purgans,” or also, Gummi de Peru, the latter strange name no doubt being a corruption of the above mentioned Ghittaiemou. The appellation “gummi de Peru” is met with in pharmaceutical tariffs during the 17th and 18th centuries.

[339] It has been named _Garcinia Hanburyi_ by Sir Joseph Hooker (_Journ. of the Linnean Soc._ xiv., 1873, 435), but I presume my lamented friend Daniel Hanbury would not have considered the plant under notice as a distinct species. Consult also Bentley and Trimen, _Med. Plants_,