Regions: Islands & the coast

A single sucker in a corner gives shade, cooking leaves and, in time, fruit.

The flame tree of Indian summers; fast, spectacular and shallow-rooted.

Scarlet flowers on bare branches in spring; grows from a stuck-in cutting.

The kewda of Odisha — spiny leaves and a male flower distilled for scent.

The white frangipani of temple gardens, tougher than the pink and just as scented.

Compact evergreen with flower heads butterflies work all morning.

Flowers every day of the year and asks for nothing. Indigenous to the deccan.

Flowers nearly all year in a warm city, and sunbirds find it within a week.

Grows from a bare cutting pushed into dry soil; scents a whole terrace.

A winged-stemmed climber storing a heavy tuber under a monsoon trellis.