Regions: South India

The biggest citrus, tolerant of humidity and common in eastern gardens.

Double-lobed aromatic leaves used across the north-east and the far south.

Tiered branches and huge leaves that turn red before falling — a coastal shade tree.

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.

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

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

Evergreen, wind-firm and cropping twice a year on the coasts.

The tree the coasts are built on — water, kernel, oil, thatch and shade.

Slim palm of the wet south-west and north-east, grown in dense stands.