Regions: Central India

Cream powder-puff flowers, then papery pods that rattle all winter.

A scrambling roadside shrub with palmate leaves and small blue flower spikes.

A big orange-flowered climber of central forest, dramatic on a strong pergola.

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

Lasoda — sticky green fruit pickled across Rajasthan and Gujarat.

A wild relative of the curry leaf from peninsular scrub forest.

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

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

Khus — a grass whose roots hold a slope together and scent a summer room.

The silver-plumed grass of autumn riverbanks — Durga Puja in plant form.