Regions: south

Green cardamom of the Western Ghats — deep shade, cool air and steady rain.

A slow evergreen of the wet south-west, harvested as unopened flower buds.

Two spices from one fruit — nutmeg and mace — on the wettest coasts.

Coppiced for its inner bark; the leaf is a spice in its own right.

Thorny, nitrogen-fixing and useful on land nobody else will plant.

Glossy-leaved and salt-tolerant, with seed oil once used in every lamp.

Central India’s most important livelihood tree — flowers, oil and shade.

The timber tree of the deccan, straight-boled and deep-rooted.

A deccan hardwood whose bark and heartwood have long traditional use.

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