Durio oxleyanus, Durio zibethinus.

Durio oxleyanus Griff. Malvaceae.

Malay Islands. This is probably the form of the durian from which the cultivated species has originated.

Durio zibethinus Murr. Durian.

Malayan Archipelago. Accounts of this far-famed fruit had reached Europe as early as 1640, as Parkinson mentions it. The fruit is of the size of a man's head and the seed, with its enveloping pulp, about the size of a hen's egg. The pulp is a pure white, resembling blanc mange and as delicious in taste as the finest cream. The odor is, however, intolerable. Wallace says that to eat durians is a sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. The unripe fruit is used as a vegetable. Bayard Taylor says: "Of all fruits, at first the most intolerable but said by those who have smothered their prejudices, to be of all fruits, at last, the most indispensable. When it is brought to you at first, you clamor till it is removed; if there are durians in the next room to you, you cannot sleep. Chloride of lime and disinfectants seem to be its necessary remedy. To eat it, seems to be the sacrifice of self respect; but endure it for a while, with closed nostrils, taste it once or twice, and you will cry for durians thenceforth, even — I blush to write it—even before the glorious mangosteen."

Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, 1919, was edited by U. P. Hedrick.