Terminalia
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in Roman antiquities, a festival celebrated annually on Feb. 23, in honor of Terminus, the god of boun daries. It was then usual for peasants to assemble near the principal landmarks which separated their fields, and, after they had crowned them with garlands and flowers, to make libations of milk and wine, and to sacrifice a lamb or a young pig. The public festival was celebrated at the sixth milestone on the road to Laurentum, because at one time that was the limit of Roman territory. In botany (as a pseudo-singular), the typical genus of Terminaleæ. Trees and shrubs with alternate leaves, usually crowded at the end of the branches. From the tropics of Asia and America. T. chebula is a large and valuable tree, 80 to 100 feet high, growing in India and Burma. The fruit is ellipsoid or obovoid and five-ribbed, from three-quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter in length. The pounded rind gives the black myrobalan. The bark of the tree is used for tanning and dyeing. There are often galls on it, which are also used for dyeing. Another of the myrobalans is T. belerica, 60 or 80 feet high. It grows in India. The leaves and the fruit are used for tanning and dyeing. Other Indian species said to be used for tanning and dyeing are T. arjuna, T. catappa, T. citrina, T. paniculata, and T. tomentosa. The fruits of T. catappa, sometimes called the almond, are eaten; so are the kernels of T. chebula, which, however, if taken in large quantities, produce intoxication. A gum like gum arabic is exuded from its bark. T. chebula was believed by the old Hindus to be alterative and tonic. The fruits of T. belerica are astringent and laxative; the other Indian species are also medicinal. The milky juice of T. benzoin becomes fragrant on being dried. It is burnt in churches in Mauritius as a kind of incense. A drastic resin flows from T. argentea, a Brailian species. The root of T. latifolia is given in Jamaica in diar, rhœa. The bark of T. alata is astringent and antifebrile. The wood of T. tomentosa, when polished, resembles walnut, and has been used in India for making stethoscopes.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's account of the Roman festival in 1921 still stands: Terminalia fell on 23 February, close to the end of the old Roman year, and was marked at boundary stones with garlands, milk, wine and the blood of a lamb or pig. The botanical half has moved more. The genus, which Collier's placed in "Terminaleæ", is now assigned to the family Combretaceae and holds on the order of 200 or more tropical species; T. chebula and T. bellirica remain the backbone of triphala, an Ayurvedic preparation now sold worldwide as a dietary supplement, and the bark of T. arjuna, which Collier's lists only among the tanning and dyeing species, has since been put through clinical trials for heart failure and angina. T. catappa, the "almond" of the entry, has spread as a planted and self-sown beach tree across the tropics, including Florida and Australia, where it is treated as invasive.
Written for this edition, 2026.