Regions: North India

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

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

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.

Figs in bunches straight off the trunk, feeding birds, bats and monkeys.

Flushes pink-red new leaves in spring; a broad, fast shade tree.