Goals: Biodiversity

A nitrogen-fixing pioneer of Himalayan landslides and north-eastern jhum fallows.

Big palmate leaves and white flower candles in the western Himalayan valleys.

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.

The forest ancestor of the orchard mango, still fruiting in eastern hill forest.

A tough dry-forest tree with papery winged seeds that blanket the ground in March.

The scented heartwood tree of the southern Deccan — a hemiparasite that needs a host.

The red-timbered endemic of the Andhra hills; slow, valuable and heavily poached.

Cream powder-puff flowers, then papery pods that rattle all winter.