Garcinia xanthochymus Hook.f. ex T.Anderson

Anderson, T. in Hooker, J.D. (1874) The Flora of British India 1(2): 269. Type: India: Circars, s.dat., Roxburgh s.n. (holo: BR, herb. Mart.).

Sour mangosteen; False mangosteen; Yellow mangosteen; Gamboge tree; Eggtree

Tree to 20 m. Exudate yellow or milky. Dioecious.

Petioles and twigs produce a yellow or milky exudate. Twigs 6-8-ribbed. Petioles 10-25 mm long. Leaf blades 12-41 cm long x 3.8-12 cm wide; oblong, linear-oblong, oblong-lanceolate, oblong-ovate or ovate; margin recurved. Secondary veins 20-25 pairs, forming loops within the margin; exudate-containing canals sparse on underside as faint long lines.

Male inflorescence not seen for Australian material. Fascicles 4-8-flowered; sepals 5; petals 5, ca. 8 mm diam.; androecium 5-phalangiate; phalanges strap-shaped at base and flabellate towards apex, inflexed, apically branched into 3-6 filaments; anthers 2-celled, introrse; nectaries between phalanges. Female inflorescence axillary or ramiflorous, a reduced raceme, fascicle-like, 2-14-flowered. Female flowers: fragrance not recorded; ca. 10-20 mm diam.; pedicels 18-36 mm; sepals 5, free, suborbicular, 3.5-4 mm long x 6-7 mm wide, green or whitish, margin minutely ciliate; petals 5, free, orbicular, erect, 7.5-8 mm long x 10-11 mm wide, white, cream or pale yellow, margin minutely ciliate; staminodal phalanges 5, opposite petals, solitary and slender or 3 or 4-fused and strap-shaped at base and flabellate towards apex, inflexed, ca. 3 mm long, branched into 3 or 4 filaments at apex, antherodes solitary or 3 or 4 per phalange, introrse, bilobed, flattened; nectaries alternating between phalanges; disk ca. 5 mm wide; ovary globular, ca. 4 mm long x 6 mm wide, sessile, 5-locular, locules uni-ovulate; stigma 5-branched.

Fruits a fleshy berry, yellow or orange, often asymmetrical with beak not centred, ovoid or globose, beaked, 38-65 mm long x 35-50 mm wide; seeds 1-5, usually 1 or 2, 25-35 mm long x 15-18 mm wide; aril fleshy, yellow or orange.

Features not available.

An introduced species originally from India and Asia but cultivated throughout the tropics and subtropics, now naturalised in parts of NEQ and in southern Queensland. Altitudinal range of naturalised plants from near sea level to 500 m. Grows in gallery forest and rainforest.