Also unlike the purple mangosteen, it can be grown in a container.

The fruit is sometimes mistaken for the unrelated purple mangosteen.

It is closely related to other edible tropical fruits such as purple mangosteen and button mangosteen.

It is known for local tropical fruits such as durian, rambutan, pundung, kepel, mango and purple mangosteen.

Commonly, the plants in this genus are called saptrees, mangosteens (which may also refer specifically to the purple mangosteen, G. mangostana), garcinias or, ambiguously, "monkey fruit".

The best-known species is the purple mangosteen (G. mangostana), which is now cultivated throughout Southeast Asia and other tropical countries, having become established in the late 20th century.

The purple mangosteen belongs to the same genus as the other, less widely known, mangosteens, such as the button mangosteen (G. prainiana) or the charichuelo (G. madruno).

Extracts of the exocarp of certain species - typically gambooge, but also purple mangosteen - are often contained in appetite suppressants such as Hydroxycut, Leptoprin or XanGo.

The purple mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), colloquially known simply as mangosteen, is a tropical evergreen tree believed to have originated in the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas of Indonesia.

Others to watch are the round, purple mangosteen, with juicy sour-sweet flesh; the rambutan or longan, similar to a litchi, and the pummelo, a thick-skinned ancestor of grapefruit that has a richly sweet flavor and lacks grapefruit's hint of bitterness.

It has a flavor similar to, but distinct from, its cousin, the purple mangosteen, with an interesting taste some have compared to a tangerine, but unlike its cousin, it has a tissue-thin skin rather than a hard rind, making it much easier to eat out-of-hand.