English: Emblic.
Region: east Asia, China, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia.
Habitat: mixed forests; dry forests; dry open sparse forests or scrub; elevations of 200 - 2,300 metres; hot, tropical lowlands; in both humid and semi-arid areas; daytime temperatures of 20 - 29°c; annual rainfall in the range 1500 - 2500 mm; full sun or part day shade; soil well drained, sandy loam to clay, light or heavy, slightly acidic to slightly alkaline.
Content: pectin; 1 - 1.8% vitamin C; carbohydrate and minerals; seeds yield 16% brownish yellow oil, with linoleic acid (44%), oleic acid (28.4%), linolenic acid (8.8%), stearic acid (2.2%), palmitic acid (3.0%) and myristic acid (1.0%); fruits, bark and leaves are rich in tannin 18 - 35%, allotannins, ellagitannins, gallic acid, ellagic acid, glucose; bark proanthocyanidins.
Use: ornamental; fruit, raw or cooked, with acid, rather astringent flavour, they are not often eaten raw unless accompanied with sugar, salt or chillies to moderate them; fruit for jams, jellies, tarts, chutneys, wayside nibble to quench the thirst; fruits preserved by splitting, removing the stone, putting the segments into a solution of 42% glycerol, 42% sucrose, water and preservatives, then heating to 90°c for 3 minutes; leaves, cooked. Small, with a bitter flavour; fruits for black salt; reforestation; leaves for dyeing matting, bamboo wickerwork, silk and wool into brown colours; grey and black colours are obtained when iron salts are used as mordants; fruits for preparing a black ink and a hair dye; leaves for fillings in pillows; shampoo; red wood is close-grained, fairly heavy, very durable when submerged, hard but flexible, highly subject to warping and splitting for minor construction, furniture, implements, gunstocks, hookahs, ordinary pipes, crude aqueducts and inner braces for wells; wood for fuel, charcoal; fruit for medicine, as in triphala, an Ayurvedic rejuvenating, laxative tonic.
BotanyDeciduous shrub or small tree; 7.5 - 18 metres tall, occasionally up to 30 metres; bole is often crooked and gnarled, is up to 35 cm in diameter; seldom entirely bare, thus cited as being evergreen; pioneer; fire resistant, recovers fast after a fire.
Fruit: yellow, up to 25 mm in diameter; stays ripe for several months