Regions: South India

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.

The tree the subcontinent is organised around; a grafted plant fruits in four years.

One tree feeds a street. Green for sabzi, ripe for the sweetest fruit there is.

The most forgiving fruit tree for a small Indian garden or a big pot.

Fruit inside a year from seed — the fastest fruit a household can grow.

A single sucker in a corner gives shade, cooking leaves and, in time, fruit.

A small deccan tree that fruits on very little water and poor soil.

A thorny slow tree of dry country with a hard-shelled sour fruit.

Yellow bells almost all year on a shrub that survives a forgotten terrace.