author(s) : Husseiny A. H. Elgendy, Ibrahim A. El Garf
and Abdel-Fattah M. Rizk

The family Guttiferae contains over 1000 species, mainly restricted to the tropics except for the genus Hypericum, which occurred widely in tropical region. Majority of these plants are trees or shrubs and some of them yield useful timber.
Some of these genera and species are found to be endemic to certain land masses, for example, Kielmeyera is confined to the South Africa continent, Symphonia and Pentadesma are confined to Africa (Susanti et al., 2011).
Like all members of the family Clusiaceae, Clusia plants have latex in nearly all their tissues. Quantities and colour of the latex vary among the species and also between different plant organs of one plant.
The latex, extracted mainly from fruits of the Clusia species has been used in popular medicine by ingestion for rheumatic treatment and infant oral candidiasis (Da Camara et al., 2018).

Phytochemical studies have documented that Guttiferae is rich in a variety of oxygenated and prenylated polyphenols.
Many compounds such as xanthones, benzophenones, biflavonoids, neoflavonoids, coumarins, triterpenoids and steroids have been isolated from various species (Susanti et al., 2011).
The xanthones are usually found in this family and considered as a chemotaxanomic interest.
Many xanthones have been isolated, from species of the family and were reviewed [e.g., Calophyllum bracteatum, Calophyllum inophyllum, Mesua ferrea, Psorospermum febrifugum, Vismia guineensi] (Sultanbawa, 1980; Bennet and Lee, 1989; Peres and Nagem, 1997).
The occurrence of prenylated xanthones was reported as restricted to the plant species of the family Guttiferae (Negi et al., 2013).
Investigation of the fruit latex of twelve species of Clusia belonging to four different taxonomic sections revealed that the latex is characterised by large amounts of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons as major constituents like germacrene D: Clusia paralicola (44.28 %), Clusia criuva subsp. criuva (29.03 %); β- caryophyllene: Clusia fluminensis (35.61 %), Clusia lanceolata (36.39 %), Clusia hilariana (58.10 %); α-trans-bergamontene: Clusia spirictus-sanctensis (36.30 %); α-bulnesene: Clusia weddelliana (25.61 %); bicyclogermacrene: Clusia panapanari (25.93 %) and trans-β-farnesene: Clusia nemorosa (24.63 %), while Clusia grandiflora is composed of 42.16 % monoterpene hydrocarbons. Verbenone (31.91 %) was the major component. In contrast, Clusia rosea, Clusia grandiflora, Clusia lanceolata and Clusia criuva subsp. parviflora are rich in 3- methylcyclohexanone (19.56 %), hexadecanol (22.72 %), p-anisaldehyde (23.39 %) and octadecanol (26.81 %), respectively (Da Camara et al., 2018).
There are several reviews on the chemical constituents, biological and pharmacological activities of some species of this family e.g., Garcinia dulcis (Khamthong and Hutadilok-Towatana, 2017), Garcinia xanthochymus (Hassan et al., 2018) and Mesua ferrea (Nadpara et al., 2012).