Garcinia merguensis Wight, Icon. Pl. Ind. Orient. 116. 1839 & Ill. Ind. Bot. 1: 124.1840; T. Anderson Fl. Brit. India 1: 267. 1874.

Trees or shrubs, 13 - 20 m tall; branchlets brachiate, subterete, quadrate-compressed; bark greyish-green. Leaves 5 - 12 x 2.5 - 5 cm, lanceolate, elliptic or ovate, subrepand, thinly coriaceous, midrib prominent, lateral veins minute, thin, ca 2 mm apart, irregular, parallel, arcuate, ending in a stout intramarginal nerve. Male flowers: Indefinite in short, 4 - 6 cm long, axillary cymes, nearly tripartite at base, lateral branches 1-flowered, median 3-flowered, often in false, contracted umbels, ca 1 cm in diam.; pedicels 2 - 10 mm long, tetragonal; bracteoles 2. Sepals 4, decussate, outer bract-like, inner larger, 2.5 mm long, concave, membranous. Petals 4, 5 - 6 mm long, ovate, obtuse, concave, imbricate. Staminal bundles opposite to petals, each bearing a head of anthers, on short filaments; anthers small, didymous, bilocular, shortly obliquely dehiscent. Rudimentary pistil variable, often fungiform, large, styles as long as staminal bundles. Female flowers: Solitary or geminate; pedicels 12 - 25 mm long. Staminodes scale-like, margin obtuse-dentate. Ovary shallowly obconic, bilocular, 1-ovuled, ovule semianatropous; styles absent; stigmas large, thick, convex, almost covering the whole ovary. Berries fleshy, smooth with discoid, 3 - 4 mm broad, sessile, coronate stigma. Seeds solitary, subreniform.

Fl. & Fr. Dec. - Jan.

Distrib. India: In dense, evergreen forests. Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Andaman Islands).

Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, S. Vietnam, Thailand, Malacca and Malay Peninsula.