INDIAN GOOSEBERRY
Family – Phyllanthacae
Scientific name –
Phyllanthus emblica
COMMON NAMES –
In English known as
Indian Gooseberry, Myrobalan, Malacca tree.
Amla in Sanskrit.
Avala in Marathi.
GENERAL INFORMATION –
The tree is small to medium in size,
reaching 1–8 m (3 ft 3 in–26 ft 3 in) in height.
The branchlets are not glabrous or
finely pubescent, 10–20 cm (3.9–7.9 in) long, usually deciduous; the
leaves are simple, subsessile and closely set along branchlets, light green,
resembling pinnate leaves.
The flowers are greenish-yellow.
The fruit is nearly spherical, light
greenish-yellow, quite smooth and hard on appearance, with six vertical stripes
or furrows.
Ripening in autumn, the berries are
harvested by hand after climbing to upper branches bearing the fruits.
The taste of Indian emblic is sour,
bitter and astringent, and it is quite fibrous.
MEDICINAL USE –
In traditional Indian
medicine, dried and fresh fruits of the plant are used.
All parts of the plant are used in
various Ayurvedic medicine herbal preparations,
including the fruit, seed, leaves, root, bark and flowers.
According to Ayurveda, amla fruit is sour
(amla) and astringent (kashaya) in taste (rasa), with sweet (madhura), bitter (tikta)
and pungent (katu) secondary tastes (anurasas).
Its qualities (gunas) are light (laghu)
and dry (ruksha), the postdigestive effect (vipaka) is sweet (madhura) and its
energy (virya) is cooling (shita).
In Ayurvedic polyherbal formulations, Indian gooseberry
is a common constituent, and most notably is the primary ingredient in an
ancient herbal rasayana called Chyawanprash.
COMMON USE –
Commonly used in inks, shampoos and
hair oils, the high tannin content of Indian gooseberry fruit serves as
a mordant for
fixing dyes in fabrics.
CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS –
These fruits are reputed
to contain high amounts of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and have a bitter taste that may derive from a high density of ellagitannins, such as emblicanin A (37%), emblicanin B (33%), punigluconin (12%), and pedunculagin (14%). Amla also contains punicafolin and phyllanemblinin A, phyllanemblin other polyphenols, such as flavonoids, kaempferol, ellagic acid, and gallic acid.
