Regions: east

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

Sacred, enormous and the most valuable bird tree in any Indian city.

The tree that becomes a grove; only for parks, campuses and village greens.

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

Flushes pink-red new leaves in spring; a broad, fast shade tree.

Glossy-leaved and salt-tolerant, with seed oil once used in every lamp.

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

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.