Regions: South India

The world’s most stubborn weed, and an aromatic tuber used for centuries.

The palmarosa of the Deccan, distilled for a rose-scented oil.

Yellow culms striped green; the ornamental clumping bamboo of Indian gardens.

The deep red night-flowering lily of eastern tanks and temple ponds.

A soft-haired jasmine that flowers through the cool months on a low wall.

A pot by an open window does more for a summer evening than any air freshener.

The chameli of the perfume fields — long-tubed white flowers picked before dawn.

Twisted screw-shaped pods on a scrub shrub of the dry deciduous forest.

Pink or white flowers all year on a shrub that survives the worst urban roadside.

Narrow willow leaves and yellow bells; tough, fast and equally poisonous.