Regions: Islands & the coast

The cane of eastern furniture — a spiny climbing palm of wet forest.

The wild banana of the north-east — seedy fruit, but flowers and stem are food.

The vine that made the Malabar coast; needs a tree to climb and constant humidity.

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.

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.

A coastal tree that fruits on poor laterite where almost nothing else does.