Goals: food

A slow evergreen of the wet south-west, harvested as unopened flower buds.

Two spices from one fruit — nutmeg and mace — on the wettest coasts.

Coppiced for its inner bark; the leaf is a spice in its own right.

A sub-Himalayan tree giving edible fat and enormous quantities of nectar.

The nut tree of Kashmir and the western hills, needing real winter cold.

Figs in bunches straight off the trunk, feeding birds, bats and monkeys.

The tree of the Thar — Rajasthan’s state tree, feeding people and stock in drought.

Central India’s most important livelihood tree — flowers, oil and shade.

The fastest usable material on earth; one clump supplies poles for years.

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