Goals: Biodiversity

A leafless thorny desert shrub with scarlet flowers and pickling berries.

Lasoda — sticky green fruit pickled across Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Tamil Nadu’s state tree — sap, fruit, leaf and timber from one palm.

The wild date of the plains, tapped for gur and fruiting freely.

Fishtail palm of the Ghats and the north-east, tapped for sap and sago.

The mehndi hedge of the dry west — scented flowers and dye leaves.

The cane of eastern furniture — a spiny climbing palm of wet forest.

Reetha — the washing fruit of the sub-Himalayan tract, from a good shade tree.

The wild banana of the north-east — seedy fruit, but flowers and stem are food.

A thorny southern climber whose pods have washed hair for centuries.