Historical review and notes on the correct scientific name for seashore mangosteen

Abstract

Taxonomic name for “seashore mangosteen” has been known as Garcinia hombroniana and was first established by Pierre (Flore Forestiere de la Cochinchine 1-2. pl. 54–98 Paris, 1882–1885). The distribution of this species is wide and can be found in the Malay Peninsula, upper part of Borneo, and in Andaman and Nicobar islands but not in the Indonesian islands. Instead, many other names are used in Indonesian islands for species that resembles G. hombroniana. This study reviews relevant taxonomic literatures accompanied by observation on herbarium specimens to see whether G. hombroniana is a valid taxonomic name to be used since many more species resembling it were used elsewhere. Historically, when Pierre created G. hombroniana, he placed it together with two Linnaeus species, G. celebica and G. cornea within section Kiras based on the characteristics of male flowers, fruits and geographical distribution. However, no surviving type specimens for G. celebica and G. cornea were found and this has created confusion on the true identities of both Linnaeus species, which have then resulted into many newly-established species. In addition, many early taxonomic classifications including the work of Linnaeus and Pierre have used poor characters for their species delimitation. Morphological evidences based on the literature and herbarium specimens suggested that there are no clear cut discontinuities in morphological characters or any characters exclusive to certain geographical areas between G. hombroniana with G. celebica and G. cornea. Because of that, the valid name that should be used is G. celebica as it was published much earlier. In addition to that, other names including G. benthamii, G. fabrilis, G. ferrea, G. rumphii, G. jawoera, G. kingii, G. krawang, G. kurzii and G. speciosa should simply be synonyms of G. celebica.