Regions: North India

A monsoon climber that will roof a terrace in eight weeks given a frame.

Ridged monsoon gourd, quick to climb and quicker to over-mature.

A sedge most people fight as a weed, though its tuber is an old perfume material.

A tough climber that fruits through the worst humidity of the year.

Cut-and-come-again greens ready in six weeks from a shallow trough.

A slow, tough native tree for a hot courtyard, with fruit that makes the summer sherbet.

The street tree of the plains; even a potted seedling supplies leaves for a pest spray.

A riverbank giant with pale bark — a tree for a campus or a colony park, not a pot.

Feathery-leaved and drought-hardy; one grafted tree feeds a household through winter.

One of the three fruits of triphala; a large deciduous tree of the sub-Himalayan tract.