Regions: North India

The wild date of the plains, tapped for gur and fruiting freely.

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

The nut tree of Kashmir and the western hills, needing real winter cold.

Ladakh and Himachal fruit — blossom in March, fruit in June, dried for winter.

The Himalayan cedar — a slow, magnificent, cold-climate conifer.

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

Desi cotton — the indigenous species, hardier than the imported kinds.

Red February cups feeding every bird in the neighbourhood at once.

Sacred, enormous and the most valuable bird tree in any Indian city.

The tree that becomes a grove; only for parks, campuses and village greens.