Haritaki

Haritaki, also called black or chebulic myrobalan, is a medium to large deciduous tree of the genus Terminalia, up to 30 metres tall, native to South Asia from India, Pakistan and Nepal east to Yunnan and south to Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Vietnam. Anders Jahan Retzius described it in 1788. The dull white to yellow flowers are monoecious and have a strong, unpleasant odour. The fruit is drupe-like, blackish with five ridges, and yellow to orange-brown, with a single angled stone. The fruits are picked while green and then pickled, boiled in their own syrup with a little sugar, or preserved. The page recognises seven fruit types, of which the vijaya type is preferred, and says the fruit also provides material for tanning leather and dyeing cloth.