Regions: North India

Yellow culms striped green; the ornamental clumping bamboo of Indian gardens.

The kusha grass of ritual, holding sandy soil across the northern plains.

Silver plumes across the riverbanks after the monsoon; the kans of the floodplain.

The anjan of dry pasture — a fodder grass that greens the Thar within days of rain.

Grows on water or wet mud and crops every fortnight through the monsoon.

A peppery salad green for a shady tray of running or frequently changed water.

The same lotus, grown in deep mud for the crisp rhizome of the Kashmiri kitchen.

Pink or white flowers all year on a shrub that survives the worst urban roadside.

Narrow willow leaves and yellow bells; tough, fast and equally poisonous.

Orange tubular flowers, continuously, and the sunbirds that follow them.