Regions: North-East India

A hill herb of stream banks with aromatic roots and heads of small white flowers.

A curcuma that smells of raw mango — the pickle rhizome of the east.

A marginal water plant for a tub, aromatic-rooted and steady for years.

A low monsoon weed of wet ground, gathered for hair oil for as long as anyone remembers.

Plant a knob of market haldi in June; harvest your own in February.

The same trick as turmeric, in slightly more shade and slightly less time.

A clump of scented grass that mosquitoes avoid and tea drinkers cannot do without.

A creeping marsh herb happy in a wide bowl of wet soil — the one plant you cannot overwater.

The pennywort of damp corners; spreads by runners and asks for shade and moisture.

A small shady-forest shrub, historically important and now scarce in the wild.