Goals: healing

The lichen of the spice box — not planted, but a reason to keep old trees standing.

A hill herb of stream banks with aromatic roots and heads of small white flowers.

A slow, tough native tree for a hot courtyard, with fruit that makes the summer sherbet.

An unfussy evergreen shrub with white throated flowers that carpenter bees work.

A low monsoon weed of wet ground, gathered for hair oil for as long as anyone remembers.

A woody climber of the dry deccan, slow but very long-lived on a trellis.

A high-altitude Himalayan herb — only worth trying in the hills, and only from nursery stock.

The spikenard of the high Himalaya, aromatic-rooted and strictly a mountain plant.

A slight winter annual of dry western fields, grown for the husk of its seed.

A dry-country shrub with yellow flowers, tough enough for a Rajasthan roof.