Regions: North India

A leafless thorny desert shrub with scarlet flowers and pickling berries.

Lasoda — sticky green fruit pickled across Rajasthan and Gujarat.

The Himalayan butter tree, giving cooking fat and an enormous honey flow.

A scrambling hill plant whose root gives a lasting red dye.

The mehndi hedge of the dry west — scented flowers and dye leaves.

Reetha — the washing fruit of the sub-Himalayan tract, from a good shade tree.

Khus — a grass whose roots hold a slope together and scent a summer room.

The silver-plumed grass of autumn riverbanks — Durga Puja in plant form.

A few canes in a corner give juice, gur and a green screen by October.

Cut-and-carry fodder that regrows every forty days for years.