Regions: North-East India

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

The paan vine — grown in shaded enclosures across Bengal and the east.

Bengal’s fibre crop, and its young leaves are a monsoon green.

A sub-Himalayan tree giving edible fat and enormous quantities of nectar.

Buransh — scarlet trusses across the mid-Himalaya in March.

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

Green cardamom of the Western Ghats — deep shade, cool air and steady rain.

Coppiced for its inner bark; the leaf is a spice in its own right.

The tejpatta of north Indian cooking — a hill tree, not the Mediterranean bay.

A creeping pepper of the eastern and southern forests, with catkin-like spikes.