Garcinia mangostana

Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), also known as the purple mangosteen, is a tropical evergreen tree with edible fruit native to Island Southeast Asia. Its exact origins are unknown due to its widespread cultivation since ancient times, but it is believed to have been somewhere between the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas. It grows mainly in Southeast Asia, southwest India and other tropical areas such as Colombia, Puerto Rico and Florida, where the tree has been introduced. The tree grows from 6 to 25 m (19.7 to 82.0 ft) tall. The fruit of the mangosteen is sweet and tangy, juicy, somewhat fibrous, with fluid-filled vesicles (like the flesh of citrus fruits), with an inedible, deep reddish-purple colored rind (exocarp) when ripe. In each fruit, the fragrant edible flesh that surrounds each seed is botanically endocarp, i.e., the inner layer of the ovary. Seeds are almond-shaped and -sized. Mangosteen belongs to the same genus as the other, less widely known, such as the button mangosteen (G. prainiana) or the charichuelo (G. madruno). Mangosteen is a native plant to Southeast Asia. Highly valued for its juicy, delicate texture and slightly sweet and sour flavour, the mangosteen has been cultivated in Malaysia, Borneo, Sumatra, Mainland Southeast Asia, and the Philippines since ancient times. The 15th-century Chinese record Yingya Shenglan described mangosteen as mang-chi-shih (derived from Malay Language manggis), a native plant of Southeast Asia of white flesh with delectable sweet and sour taste. A description of mangosteen was included in the Species Plantarum by Linnaeus in 1753. The mangosteen was introduced into English greenhouses in 1855. Subsequently its culture was introduced into the Western Hemisphere, where it became established in West Indies islands, especially Jamaica. It was later established on the Americas mainland in Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Ecuador. The mangosteen tree generally does not grow well outside the tropics. There is a legend about Queen Victoria offering a reward of 100 pounds sterling to anyone who could deliver to her the fresh fruit. Although this legend can be traced to a 1930 publication by the fruit explorer, David Fairchild, it is not substantiated by any known historical document, yet is probably responsible for the uncommon designation of mangosteen as the 'Queen of Fruit'. The journalist and gourmet R. W. Apple, Jr. once said of the fruit, 'No other fruit, for me, is so thrillingly, intoxicatingly luscious...I'd rather eat one than a hot fudge sundae, which for a big Ohio boy is saying a lot.' Since 2006, private small-volume orders for fruits grown in Puerto Rico were sold to American specialty food stores and gourmet restaurants who serve the flesh segments as a delicacy dessert. Mangosteen is usually propagated by seedlings. Vegetative propagation is difficult and seedlings are more robust and reach fruiting earlier than vegetative propagated plants. Mangosteen produces a recalcitrant seed which is not a true seed strictly defined, but rather described as a nucellar asexual embryo. As seed formation involves no sexual fertilization, the seedling is genetically identical to the mother plant. If allowed to dry, a seed dies quickly, but if soaked, seed germination takes between 14 and 21 days when the plant can be kept in a nursery for about 2 years growing in a small pot.