Zang Qing Guo

Terminalia chebula, the chebulic myrobalan or haritaki, is a medium to large deciduous tree of the family Combretaceae, reaching 20 to 30 meters tall, native to South and Southeast Asia and southern China, where it occurs in dry deciduous forests up to about 1500 meters. The bark is dark brown to grayish, longitudinally fissured. Its leaves are simple, opposite or subopposite, ovate to elliptic, 7 to 20 cm long, with two glands on the petiole near the leaf base. Short axillary spikes bear small dull yellowish-white flowers with an unpleasant odor in summer, followed by characteristic five-ridged or smooth ovoid drupes 2 to 4 cm long, ripening from green to yellow-brown or blackish, with a hard, single-seeded stone and an astringent fleshy mesocarp. The dried mature fruits are the medicinal Zang Qing Guo / Haritaki.