Regions: North-East India

Big heart leaves on a wet corner; the corm below and the leaf above both go to the pot.

Enormous upright leaves for a wet shaded corner — architecture rather than a crop.

The tall reed of Indian riverbanks, and the standard plant for a reed-bed filter.

One enlarged white sepal per flower, so the whole shrub reads as pale bracts.

The tejpatta of the sub-Himalayan tract — three-veined leaves, straight off the tree.

A woody climber with fringed white-and-yellow flowers and a heavy sweet scent.

A nitrogen-fixing pioneer of Himalayan landslides and north-eastern jhum fallows.

The forest ancestor of the orchard mango, still fruiting in eastern hill forest.

Glossy drooping new leaves in pink, then white flowers with a gold centre.

Orange-yellow flowers whose scent carries across a whole garden at dusk.