A description of the five kinds is found in The London Medical Dictionary by Bartholomew Parr (1819) , available online at http://chestofbooks.com/health/reference/London-Medical-Dictionary/Myrobalani.html sv Myrobalani: ‘... myrobalans, a dried fruit of the plum kind, brought from the East Indies, of which three kinds are brought from Bengal, faba Bengalensis, Cambaia, and Malabarica. (...) They have been recommended as somewhat astringent and tonic, but are not now in use. Myrobalanus means nux, or glans unguentaria, a nut or acorn, fit for making precious ointments; for from the myrobalans described by Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galen, they used to express a fragrant oil used in ointments. All the different kinds, which we hasten to describe, are probably varieties of the phyllanthus emblica Linné Species Plantarum, 1393.
Myrobalani bellirici, belleregi, bellegu, belliric myrobalans, are of a yellowish grey colour, and an irregularly roundish or oblong figure, about an inch long, and three quarters of an inch thick.
Myrobalani chebulae (=chebuli) resemble the yellow sort in their figure and ridges, but are larger and darker coloured, inclining to brown or blackish, and with a thicker pulp.
Myrobalani citrini, vel flavi, are somewhat longer than the belliric, have generally five large longitudinal ridges, and as many smaller between them, somewhat pointed at both ends.
Myrobalani emblici, ambegu, are of a dark, blackish grey colour, roundish, about half an inch thick, with six hexagonal faces opening from one another.
Myrobalani Indici, vel nigri, asuar, are of a deep black colour, oblong, octangular, differing from all the others in having only the rudiments of a stone, and supposed to have been gathered before maturity.
All the sorts have an unpleasant, bitterish, austere taste, strike a black colour with a solution of vitriol, contain tannine, are gently purgative and astringent. ...’ Several varieties of myrobalans (now known as Terminalia chebula, Terminalia bellirica and Phyllantus emblica) have in recent years been investigated for their potential pharmaceutical and therapeutic uses.