Terminalia

• Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
  • n. pl Terminalia (Rom. Antiq) A festival celebrated annually by the Romans on February 23 in honor of Terminus, the god of boundaries.
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• • Terminalia In Roman antiquity, a festival celebrated annually in honor of Terminus, the god of boundaries. It was held on the 23d of February, its essential feature being a survey or perambulation of boundaries.
  • n Terminalia A genus of plants, of the order Combretaceæ and suborder Combreteæ. It is characterized by apetalous flowers consisting mainly of a cylindrical calyx-tube consolidated with the one-celled ovary, five calyx-teeth surmounting a somewhat bell-shaped border, and ten exserted stamens in two series. The ovary contains two or rarely three pendulous ovules, and ripens into an ovoid angled compressed or two- to five-winged fruit which is very variable in size and shape and contains a hard oneseeded stone. There are about 90 species, natives of the tropics, less frequent in America than in the Old World. They are trees or shrubs, usually with alternate entire and petioled leaves crowded at the ends of the branches. The small sessile flowers are green, white, or rarely of other colors, usually forming loose elongated spikes often produced from scaly buds before the leaves. They are often tall forest-trees, as T. latifolia, the broadleaf, a common species in Jamaica, which reaches 100 feet. A sweet conserve, known as chebula, is made from the fruit in India. For several species of the wingless section Myrobalanus, see myrobalan. T. Catappa, the (Malabar) almond, in the West Indies also country almond, is a handsome tree from 30 to 80 feet high, with horizontal whorled branches, producing a large white almond-like seed, eaten raw or roasted and compared to the filbert in taste; it is a native of India, Arabia, and tropical Africa, cultivated in many warm regions, naturalized in America from Cuba to Guiana. In Mauritius two species, T. angustifolia and T. Mauritiana, known as false benzoin, yield a fragrant resin used as incense. Ink is made in India from the astringent galls which form on the twigs of T. Chebula. Many species produce a valuable wood, as T. tomentosa, for which see saj. T. belerica, the babela or myrobalan-wood, is valuable in India for making planks, canoes, etc.; T. Chebula, known as harra, and T. bialata, known as chugalam, are used in making furniture. T. glabra, the della-madoo of Pegu, is a source of masts and spars for ships. The latter and T. Arjuna, the urjoon of India, with about a dozen other species, are sometimes separated as a genus Pentaptera, on account of their remarkable leathery egg-shaped fruit, which is traversed lengthwise by from five to seven equidistant and similar wings.
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• • n.pl Terminalia an annual Roman festival in honour of Terminus, the god of boundaries
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