Regions: North-East India

A Himalayan pseudo-grain that flowers white and feeds every bee for miles.

Big-leaved and happy in a wet corner; corms below, edible leaves above.

One corm fills a large pot and returns a much bigger one in a year.

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

Sprawls generously and stores well; the leaves and flowers are food too.

A four-angled pod from the north-east and the coasts — every part is edible.

A tough small-grained millet of the southern and Himalayan hills.

A thick-leaved climbing spinach that thrives in the worst of the monsoon heat.

The black nightshade of monsoon fields — a leafy green in the east, a weed elsewhere.

An intensely bitter Himalayan herb of mid-altitude meadows, slow and particular.