The Indian Myrobalan Tree.
Myrobalanus Indica
A tree native of the warmer climates, and not yet got into our gardens. It grows to twenty feet high. The branches are numerous, and very irregularly disposed. The leaves are long and narrow: the flowers are white, and like the blossoms of our plum trees; and the fruit resembles a plum, oblong and fleshy, with a long stone or kernel; but the fruit is generally gathered before the stone hardens, so that it seems to have none.
We used to have the fruit brought over, and it was given as a purge, but at present none regard it. There are also four others of the same kind, the names of which we see in books of medicine, but the fruits are not to be met with, nor is it much loss, for we have better things to answer their purposes. They were called the citrine, chebule, belleric, and emblec myrobalanus; they are all used as purges, but common senna is worth them all.
