Terminalia Chebula Seeds

Terminalia chebula a tree 20mt.  in height and 1.5-2.4m in girth, with a cylindrical bole of 4-9m a rounded crown and spreading branches, found throughout the greater parts of India.  Bark dark-brown, often longitudinally cracked, exfoliating in woody scales; leaves ovate or elliptic with a pair of large glands at the top of the petiole; flowers yellowish white, in terminal spikes; drupes ellipsoidal, obovoid or ovoid, yellow to orange-brown, sometimes tinged with red or black and hard when ripe, 3-5cm long, become 5-ribbed on drving; seeds hard, pale yellow.T. chebula is found in the sub-himalaysn tracts from the Ravi eastwards to West Bengal and Assam, ascending up to an altitude of 1500m in Himalayas.

In the deciduous forests of India, it attains a girth of 1.5-1.8m., with a bole of 4.5-6.0m in length.  In the moister forests of the west coast, it reaches a girth of 2.4m or more, with a bole of 9m. in favourable localities.  In high-level rocky and dry places in the outer Himalayas and the hills of Deccan and South Indian it is a small tree.  In its natural habitat, the absolute maximum shadetemperature varies from 36 to 17.5° and the absolute minimum from 0 to 15.5°, and the normal rainfall from 75 to 330cm.  It is found on a variety of geological formations, growing on clayey as well as on sandy soils.