Carambola brightly colored and unusually shaped fruits, as well as for their attractive dark green leaves and their lavender to pink flowers. Like the bilimbi, the juice of the more acidic sour types can be used to clean rusty or tarnished metal (especially brass) as well as bleach rust stains from cloth. They may also be used as a mordant in dyeing. The Portuguese word "carambola", first known use 1598, was taken from Marathi "karambal" derived from Sanskrit "karmaphala". The carambola is known under different names in different countries. It should not be confused with the closely related bilimbi, with which
Common name of the general public (including such interested parties as fishermen, farmers, etc.) to be able to refer to one particular species of organism without needing to be able to memorise or pronounce the Latinized scientific name. Creating an "official" list of common names can also be an attempt to standardize the use of common names, which can sometimes vary a great deal between one part of a country and another, as well as between one country and another country, even where the same language is spoken in both places. A common name intrinsically plays a part in a classification of