PhytoScience - Article
History of the Mangosteen
The mangosteen fruit originated in the Malay Archipelago and quickly spread through the warm tropical climates of Southeast Asia . The small dark purple fruit with a delicious white pulp grows abundantly and is harvested twice a year from a tall evergreen tree.
The mangosteen rind was sliced and dried, then ground to a powder and administered as an herbal preparation. It was also steeped in water overnight and taken as a bitter tea. The mangosteen rind was made into an ointment and applied externally as a lotion.
It was through these popular uses that the benefits of mangosteen were passed down through history and several scientists and explorers took note. The mangosteen is so revered in Thailand that the Thai government recognizes it as the country's national fruit.
Native people throughout Southeast Asia have historically enjoyed the fruit for it's delicious taste and also used the fruit for its natural health giving properties. It was when Europeans explored Southeast Asia that folklore related to the mangosteen first spread to western culture.
However, it was not until XanGo LLC launched XanGo Juice in 2002 that mangosteen began to achieve widespread recognition and acceptance in western markets, such as the U.S. and Canada
The History
The gradual increase in awareness of the mangosteen outside of the Malay Archipelago, its native range, was a long and slow process. The few explorers who traversed the seas of Southeast Asia had more pressing issues to contend with than attempting to transport back to Europe and later the Americas an exotic fruit that was so perishable and fragile. Even the seeds die in a week or so if allowed to dry out. There were easier ways to make money. Spices, nuts, precious metals, gems, plant and animal pharmaceuticals and hard goods were all more able to make the long ocean journey back with little reduction in quality. Even so, live mangosteen plants were attempted before the 1800's.
Probably the best bibliography of the historical references to the mangosteen was assembled by Cora L. Feldkamp in 1946. This extensive compilation included, in her words, "references on all aspects of the mangosteen- botany, culture, diseases and pests, varieties, composition, nutritive value, cookery, toxic effects, uses, economics, etc." Much of the web site mangosteen.com relied on the thorough work done by Cora L. Feldkamp. It provided a vast overview of the history of the mangosteen and its steady march towards modern times and greater familiarity in the Western Hemisphere and Europe.
The earlier transportation of plants outside of their native range required a great deal of planning and then luck when the mode of transportation was a boat on the open seas. Beyond the usual basic necessity of food and weaponry, live plant transportation called for more elaborate measures i.e. refitting the ship deck, lining the hull with copper to ward off seaborne wood parasites, designing special plant cases or building greenhouses on deck, storing extra fresh water, etc.
Some of the earlier plant explorers did succeed admirably in getting their accessions back to their home countries or colonies. Sometimes the accessions changed ships in transit when a homeward-bound vessel aided a fellow countryman in getting their collected material back to the mother country. And sometimes the collected material became the property of a different country as a result of piracy. In this regard, the Spanish, French, Dutch, British, Portuguese and others all vied for control of different regions of the world and strove to create monopolies in any and all commodities.
The spice trade, furs, gums and waxes, natural dyes, ivory, silk, cotton and coffee comprised much of the cargo at sea in those times. A gradual trend was emerging where the control of a commodity was more manageable for a colonial power than absolute control of the people of a colony or possession and treaties for this purpose abounded. In the decades following their loss in the Revolutionary War, the British set to the task of exploring and strengthening their grip on particular trade routes on the seas.
Plants were not only transported back to home countries from afar. Many colonizers also took plants and livestock the other way, 'seeding' the islands along the routes to try and ensure a food supply in both directions and a means of barter as well. Horses, pigs and goats were presented as gifts to secure certain trade privileges and the result was a movement of germplasm of many species outside of their native ranges that would never be allowed today.
The records that detail the movement of the mangosteen during the 18th and 19th century indicate that the first introduction of the mangosteen in the UK goes back to someone named Anton Pantaleon Hove. A. P. Hove (alternately Hoveau) was a Pole dispatched by Sir Joseph Banks to go and try to 'obtain' some better strains of cotton seeds from Gujarat, India. Apparently amongst his procurements were mangosteen plants that made it back to Plymouth, England in 1789 and which were then moved to Kew.
Sir Joseph Banks, whose widespread popularity and renown resulting from his accompanying Captain Cook on his first expedition, was then head of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and president of the Royal Society. Banks was very actively involved throughout this period in guiding, consulting on and sometimes personally funding projects involving both plant and animal introductions. Slowly but surely, the effort was being made to introduce the mangosteen into the Western Hemisphere.