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. 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. Throughout the Malay Archipelago, there are many different spellings of names similar to most of the above.

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. 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. New leaves are rosy. Flowers, 1 1/2 to 2 in (4-5 cm) wide and fleshy, may be male or hermaphrodite on the same tree. 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. 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 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 rind is 1/4 to 3/8 in (6-10 mm) thick, red in cross-section, purplish-white on the inside. It contains bitter yellow latex and a purple, staining juice. There are 4 to 8 triangular segments of snow-white, juicy, soft flesh (actually the arils of the seeds). 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. The flesh is slightly acid and mild to distinctly acid in flavor and is acclaimed as exquisitely luscious and delicious.

In dry, warm, closed storage, mangosteens can be held 20 to 25 days. Longer periods cause the outer skin to toughen and the rind to become rubbery; later, the rind hardens and becomes difficult to open and the flesh turns dry.

Ripe mangosteens keep well for 3 to 4 weeks in storage at 40º to 55º F (4.44º-12.78º C). Trials in India have shown that optimum conditions for cold storage are temperatures of 39º to 42º F (3.89º-5.56º C) and relative humidity of 85 to 90%, which maintain quality for 49 days. It is recommended that the fruits be wrapped in tissue paper and packed 25-to-the-box in light wooden crates with excelsior padding. Fruits picked slightly unripe have been shipped from Burma to the United Kingdom at 50º to 55º F (10º-12.78º C). From 1927 to 1929, trial shipments were made from Java to Holland at 37.4º F (approximately 2.38º C) and the fruits kept in good condition for 24 days.

ORGIN

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.

Corner suggests that the tree may have been first domesticated in Thailand, or Burma. It is much cultivated in Thailand-where there were 9,700 acres (4,000 ha) in 1965-also in Kampuchea, southern Vietnam and Burma, throughout Malaya and Singapore. The tree was planted in Ceylon about 1800 and in India in 1881. There it succeeds in 4 limited areas-the 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 is fairly common only in the provinces of Mindanao and Sulu (or Jolo) in the Philippines. 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). There were fruiting trees in greenhouses in England in 1855. The mangosteen was introduced into Trinidad from the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, England, between 1850 and 1860 and the first fruit was borne in 1875. It reached the Panama Canal Zone and Puerto Rico in 1903 but there are only a few trees in these areas, in Jamaica, Dominica and Cuba, and some scattered around other parts of the West Indies. The United States Department of Agriculture received seeds from Java in 1906 (S.P.I. #17146). A large test block of productive trees has been maintained at the Lancetilla Experimental Station at Tela, Honduras, for many years.

Quite a few trees distributed by the United Fruit Company long ago have done well on the Atlantic coast of Guatemala. In 1924, Dr. Wilson Popenoe saw the mangosteen growing at one site in Ecuador. In 1939, 15,000 seeds were distributed by the Canal Zone Experiment Gardens to many areas of tropical America. It is probable that only a relatively few seedlings survived. It is known that many die during the first year. Dr. Victor Patiño has observed flourishing mangosteen trees at the site of an old mining settlement in Mariquita, Colombia, in the Magdalena Valley and the fruits are sold on local markets. Dierberger Agricola Ltda., of Sao Paulo, included the mangosteen in their nursery catalog in 1949.

FOLIAGE

This paper reports the direct regeneration of shoot buds from leaf segments of mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.) cultured in vitro. Explants were taken from 1-3-year-old seedlings and 16 year-old mature fruiting trees. The optimal level of benzylaminopurine (BAP) for shoot bud development from seedling leaf explants was 5 mg l-1 Higher concentrations were also effective but shoot buds were clustered and stunted. Very young red leaves, 2-3 cm long, from mature trees also produced shoot buds on this medium. When leaves from mature trees that had turned from red to green were used, the frequency of shoot bud formation decreased. The number of vegetative buds was higher in red leaves from seedlings compared with young red leaves from mature trees. Secondary shoot buds also developed on leaves of cultured epiphyllous shoots from both seedlings and mature trees. Shoots from leaves of seedlings and mature trees, measuring more than 2 cm were rooted with an acute auxin treatment. Plantlets from seedling leaf explants were successfully acclimatised and established in soil.

FLOWERS

Flowers, 1 1/2 to 2 in (4-5 cm) wide and fleshy, may be male or hermaphrodite on the same tree. 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. 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.

FRUITS

Regarded as the ‘queen of tropical fruit’. A round fruit between a snooker ball and a tennis ball in size, with a hard purplish skin, that turns to light green at the stem. The flesh is white, sweet, and considered by some as having the finest taste of all tropical fruit. Fruit are consigned to market in trays, and are handled very carefully, for their fragility and high market value. To open the fruit, cut through the skin only, and lightly pull and twist the fruit apart.

Info Source : International Tropical Fruits Network