Goals: Grow food

The chuli of Ladakh and Kinnaur — blossom in April, fruit and kernel oil by July.

The tejpatta of the sub-Himalayan tract — three-veined leaves, straight off the tree.

The wild amla of the southern hills, smaller-fruited and tougher than the orchard kind.

The sap palm of Bengal and the Deccan, tapped in winter for nolen gur.

Singhara — a floating annual grown in ponds and tanks across the north and east.

Bihar’s pond crop — prickly floating leaves and the popped seed of fasting food.

A floating fern that fixes nitrogen — fertiliser and fodder that grows itself.

Sweet basil — indigenous cultivation across India long before its pizza career.

Grown for the seed that swells in falooda and summer sherbets.

A wild desert melon of Rajasthan, dried and powdered as a souring agent.