Goals: beauty

Red brushes of stamens on drooping branches; a hardy naturalised garden tree.

Yellow flower spires and copper seed pods; the summer partner to the gulmohar.

Maroon night flowers on long ropes, then metre-long fruit that alarms everybody.

Bare branches and orange claws of flower in February — the tree that announces Holi.

Fat red flowers on a bare grey trunk, then pods of cotton that blow down every street.

The true ashoka — orange flower clusters on a small shade-loving tree of wet forest.

A big orange-flowered climber of central forest, dramatic on a strong pergola.

The silver-plumed grass of autumn riverbanks — Durga Puja in plant form.

Grown for fibre and calyces in the west and centre; a striking tall annual.

Desi cotton — the indigenous species, hardier than the imported kinds.