Gamboge is most often extracted by tapping resin (sometimes incorrectly referred to as sap) from various species of evergreen trees of the family Clusiaceae (also known as Guttiferae).
During the next decade this tireless and prolific worker published numerous significant papers concerning such essentially tropical families as the Araceae, Clusiaceae, Menispermaceae, Mimosaceae and Sonnera tiaceae see Palynos 8(2): 7, Dec 1985.
Garcinia madruno, a tropical species of fruit tree in the Clusiaceae family
The family Clusiaceae was divided by Cronquist into 2 subfamilies: the Clusioideae (typical subfamily) and the Hypericoideae.
The flora consists of about two hundreds of species, mostly Clusiaceae, Fabaceae và Sapotaceae.
There its habitat is a patchy mix containing primary forest (e.g. high Iriartea deltoidea palm woods), wet premontane secondary forest dominated e.g. by Elaeagia (Rubiaceae) and with abundant epiphytes and hemiepiphytes such as Clusiaceae, former clearings overgrown with shrubs, and fresh forest edges.