of the family Guttiferae is a fruit tree of the
humid tropics native to the Malay Archipelago. It is an evergreen tree with a dense
pyramidal crown that grows up to 8-10 m tall. The leaves are opposite, thick and leathery.
The flowers are 4-5 cm in diameter, fleshy and may be male or hermaphrodite on the same
tree. Male flowers are in clusters of 3-9 at the branch tips, with 4 sepals and 4 fleshy petals,
green on the outside and yellow-red on the inside with numerous stamens. The
hermaphrodite flowers are borne singly or in pairs at the tips of young branchlets, the
petals are red with a yellowish green edge and are shed quickly. The fruit is round and
approximately 3.5-7 cm in diameter and weighs about 75-150 g. It has a smooth, thick and
firm rind 6-8 mm thick, pale green when immature and dark purple or red-purple when
fully ripe. Inside the fruit there are 4-8 white segments that are sweet, juicy and faintly
aromatic when eaten. The fruits may be seedless or contain 1-5 seeds, each capable of
producing more than one seedling. Technically, the so-called seeds are not true seeds as
they are not produced by fertilization of male and female gametes. Mangosteen is known
as an ‘obligate apomict’ and reproduction is completely asexual. Variation amongst offspring is therefore very limited
and because of this, propagation by seed is very common. Mangosteen is a very slow growing and shallow-rooted tree,