Goals: food

Handsome, thorny and productive on poor dry soil; good in a big pot.

Evergreen, wind-firm and cropping twice a year on the coasts.

The tree the coasts are built on — water, kernel, oil, thatch and shade.

Slim palm of the wet south-west and north-east, grown in dense stands.

The most forgiving fruit tree for a small Indian garden or a big pot.

Fruit inside a year from seed — the fastest fruit a household can grow.

A small deccan tree that fruits on very little water and poor soil.

A thorny slow tree of dry country with a hard-shelled sour fruit.

Purple fruit in June and dense evergreen shade for the rest of the year.

The fruit of the dry west, cropping where irrigation is impossible.